Andrew, Chris and Coops also had a big love for re:e right from the start. Re:e started practicing at hangar, and were soon tightly interwoven in a social and musical sense with Toy Balloon and Mr. Maps. It was natural for lofly to offer to help them put out their new recordings.

From under the tough shell, re:e’s squishy pop innards are starting to emerge. Their first release on lofly (the double A Problematic/Nintendogs) is a clear indicator that the band always saw themselves differently to what they showed us.

For one thing, they are serious – curious to see what they can drag out of themselves. The singles were mixed by Gerling’s Burke Reid, who also did the Drones’ Havilah and is now working on the new Holly Throsby record. Going to mix with someone of that calibre means you pay a lot to have someone strip your songs back to their essence. It has been an interesting ride to watch.

Problematic is re:enactment at their dancefloor simplest. It’s clearly a single. Our friend Lloyd had a rough mix of it months ago and found when he dropped it into his DJ sets, girls dropped their handbags to the ground and boys dropped their drinks on tables. It has That Classic Beat. If Andrew or I had mixed Problematic it might have been far noisier, with the vocals tucked away in layers of haze… all brooding eyes under a long fringe and beard. But Burke has trimmed it up to be a clean cut Triple J winner. Hearing his mix makes me want to get the razor out on my songs and see what they might be hiding.

Nintendogs is another re:e one-off in that it’s exceptionally cruisy and breezy and other words ending in Y. It balances Problematic very well. The lyrics are hard to decipher, but it’s all about the glory days of doing nothing. The pre-ambition days of waking up face down on the lino on a Tuesday afternoon. I find it extremely moving. Maybe I’m just not seeing enough of the floor lately, but Nintendogs is definitely under my skin.

The disc is rounded out with the wonderful Don’t Even, and a live version of Steel Drums (recorded at hangar). Don’t Even reminds me of Radiohead B-sides from the Kid A/Amnesiac era: a lost human singing/muttering from inside a strange and elaborate machine. Steel Drums is the re:e we knew from the start, six minutes of epic sprawl, a showcase for that murderous rhythm section. It also delivers yet another example of Jac’s fine lyrical wit – the light but fabulously dirty “I’ll make you turn around six times”. Worth the price of admission alone.

Now I’d like to think I can see how the re:e album puzzle will come together. I can sort of. Yes, the pieces will share an attention to sonic detail, an intelligence, a playfulness and a surprising pop sensibility, but they are also going to vary dramatically, especially once shorn of a few layers of noise. Who knows what else is under there?