Itch-e & Scratch-e redefined the Australian dance music scene in 1994 when they released their breakthrough track Sweetness And Light. With its esoteric dance beats it was a crossover hit, reaching ravers and grunge kids alike.

The men behind the music, Andy Rantzen and Paul Mac, were dubbed the godfathers of Australian dance music. They went on to reinvent their group and then pursued projects independently, most noticeably Mac’s collaboration with Silverchair’s Daniel Johns.

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Now, after 10 years, Itch-e & Scratch-e are back. And how!

‘We never split up, we just stopped making (music),’ Mac said of the initial cessation of Itch-e & Scratch-e.

‘I think by the time we got to 2000 – which is when we split up – I just felt like it was getting super-boring and it went through a definite ditch. It just got hyper commercialised and very formulaic.’

The time apart has served them well. Rantzen got married and had a child while Mac released two solo albums and the highly acclaimed Dissociatives collaboration with Daniel Johns.

They began bumping into each other and from there it snowballed into making music again and doing reunion tours. Now they have a new album – Hooray For Everything!!! which is ready to rock Australia again

‘I think back then you were either a raver or you were into rock,’ Mac said of how the music landscape has changed since their debut.

‘Now I think the kids don’t care as much, they’re just into good music. It’s way more that the boundaries have broken. It’s less monogamous.’

Monogamy certainly isn’t a concern on the duo’s lead single, Other Planets.

Based on a line from a Stefan George poem (‘I breathe the air of other planets’), the song features amazingly queer lyrics from straight New York rapper MDNA, including such gems as ‘Never call me fag / even when I’m cruising dressed up in drag’.

And that’s the tamer end of the spectrum.

‘He’s a straight boy who’s 22 but wrote the gayest lyric I’ve ever heard. Which I think is really cool. It just shows that for that generation it’s just not a big deal anymore.

‘In my own personal career I did not want to be pigeonholed as a gay artist. I just wanted to be known as an artist. The fact that I’m gay is an aside to that.

‘As soon as you become a gay artist you’re expected to write about or write in a certain way or be a certain thing that I’ve never felt comfortable with.

‘I think that’s all broken down. Nobody gives a shit anymore if you’re gay. I think that’s really cool. And that fact that a 20-odd straight boy wrote the gayest chorus I’ve ever heard: the lyrics are genius.’

Naturally, the song has received very little radio play, even when edited down.

‘Even Triple J found it too confronting so I did a version where I took all the “dick”, “fuck” and “arse” out and then there was still a problem with “never call me a fag”, people thought it was homophobic.

‘But I was like hang on, I’m gay so it should be ok.

‘But even then it scared too many people that it might be perceived as being homophobic which is ridiculous, but it’s not about that at all. He’s just saying “do not classify me, do not stereotype me, I am beyond your system of classification, we’re from other planets”.’

The album itself is brilliantly disparate in sound, fusing elements of tech, a splash of minimal, some lush rave and ’90s house, all wrapped up with a sense of celestial melancholia.

‘It always feel like when you hit a certain point in time that everything has been done and there won’t be anymore revolutions, but there always is,’ Mac said on the future of Australian dance music.

‘I think it always evolves and always will do. I think there are periods where more evolution happens and then there’s periods where less evolution happens.

‘I think we’re in a pretty healthy state at the moment. I even thought back in the day, back in 1987, there was 90 percent shithouse music and 10 percent good music. That ratio seems to be pretty constant.’

Naturally, Itch-e & Scratch-e falls into that 10 percent.

Hooray For Everything!!! is out now through Hussle (Ministry of Sound). www.myspace.com/itcheandscratcheband

Scott-Patrick Mitchell