Dance music fans can be excused for doing double takes and wondering whether they really had THAT big a night while watching the early morning music videos on weekend TV lately. Intermingled between the mainstream pop and R & B is Infusion’s latest single, and first for BMG, Girls can Be Cruel. Perceived by many as an underground dance music act, a view based mainly on their 12” releases and energetic live shows, Infusion regard this as only part of their package and the electro rock of Girls Can Be Cruel shows a rarely witnessed side to the three piece.

“We were trying to come up with an idea for the film clip and BMG, our manager and some creative guys thought it would be funny to base it around a fashion shoot,” explains Infusion’s Jamie Stevens. “But then to have twisted little parts to it that are a bit disturbing. Spiders running down the models legs and other stuff like that. Just quick little disturbing flashes. Obviously us being in the film clip wasn’t disturbing enough.”

We actually wrote Girls Can Be Cruel as a 12” for Audio Therapy. The idea was to make a club track, but to experiment with concepts we hadn’t really tried and aren’t known for. Things like different use of melody, more upfront vocals and not have a repetitive droning bassline. But it was definitely a club track first and foremost and I’d done the SQ’d remix for the other side. However, after we finished it we thought it could actually be a pretty catchy single and took it to BMG to see if they’d be interested. It blended well with the rest of the album so BMG went for it”

Having signed a “fairly long term” contract with BMG worldwide as of five months ago, this will undoubtedly open up new doorways and blast the old ones much wider considering that Infusion were already regarded as one of the worlds best live electronic acts and producers. Girls Can Be Cruel, a track acclaimed by Adam Freeland as “the best thing they’ve ever done” (a quote humbly dismissed by Stevens with the tongue in cheek comment “he’s just trying to lick our arses”) precedes Infusion’s second album set for release in mid July. It has been a long time between having a label to call home, but Infusion are confident that the time they took to find the best option was well spent. “The last label we were signed to was Thunk years and years ago,” Stevens explains. “The stuff we did with Marine Parade was just one off singles. Freeland signed Starwater after it was completed and then Dead Souls we wrote specifically for his label.”

And with a new label comes a sound that will surprise those expecting an hour of pounding club beats. When asked about the eighties influence on Girls Can Be Cruel, in part a byproduct of their teenage fascination with electronic based pop, Stevens confirms that Infusion’s influences come through more on this album than ever before. “We’ve always seen the 12” as being written to work in the club environment while our aim with the album was to try and produce something that we can be proud of as a good piece of music,” he expands. “We’re opening ourselves up to new sounds and also drawing upon the music we’ve loved. And a lot of that is from the eighties. We’re bringing that through and developing our own interpretations. So sure there is a bit of an eighties sound but there is also a classical influence and some straight down the line rock that we love listening to. None of the other tracks on the album have been released as 12”, so it’s all new stuff although a couple of tracks we’ve been playing live. But on the whole it’s not really a club album as it’s quite song based."

Hype and Infusion are no strangers. Described in gushing terms by usually reserved media and industry types as everything from “one of the most celebrated live electronic acts in the world” to “Underworld to the tenth power,” the latter is a comparison shrugged off by Stevens. “I don’t really see much in common between us and Underworld other than there being three people on stage who do a continuous set of live electronic music,” he states matter of factly. “It’s not that there aren’t many people who can do it, but that there aren’t many people who do, do it”

Yet there are even fewer who do it nearly as well as Infusion, a skill that has been developed in part through talent, but just as much through hard work and self-confessed pedanticism. “If you’re up there and you’re not actually feeding off the other people properly, it’s very easy to be out of sync as you never really know where the others are going. There is nothing predetermined. There is no set list. We have a choice of about sixty tracks and what order we play them will depend on the night and the crowd. We usually know which track we’ll start with about five minutes before going on. As far as everything else, it really is up to us, which leads to a huge amount of randomness which is the fun of it really. It keeps us on our toes.”

More often than not, the audience attending an Infusion live set are just as much on their toes, the trio producing an energy few can match, with a recent set at the Creamfields festival in Argentina eclipsing all previous gigs and firmly placing itself as their best to date. It was their first visit to South America, and while world renown Argentinean progressive DJ and Infusion enthusiast, Hernan Cattaneo, had assured them that a large contingent of the audiences would arrive for their set, they remained unconvinced. Preceding Infusion on the huge outdoor main stage were an MC Hammer styled South American hip hop band who had managed to lose much of the audience and half an hour before Infusion’s set, they surveyed from backstage a largely empty field. And then…well Stevens can take it from here. “The sun had just come down and we weren’t really looking around as we were in the final stages of setting up. Then we came on and our mouths just opened in disbelief as we looked out upon 15 000 people packing the field. It was unbelievable. And from the first beat they were jumping around like nuts, throwing their hands around. I’ve never seen a sea of hands like that and it was such a buzz being on a massive stage. There was a really amazing energy. We’re going back in a few months to do Peru, Brazil, Buenos Aries and a few other places.�