PVT – Cargo, London 06/10/2010

15 October 2010, 11:00 | Written by Lauren Down

(Live)

A decade is a long time by anyone’s standards, especially in musical terms. The rise of the Internet as a platform for new music changed the dynamic as it oversaw genre’s and bands fall out of fashion as fast as you can hit the shuffle button on your iPod. But it’s just over a decade now since the London via Australian band PVT (formally Pivot) have been together, watching fashions come and go whilst gently building momentum.

After releasing their debut Make Me Love You in 2005, in amongst an EP or two, the band aligned them self with Warp Records in 2008 and, with a streamlined set up, released O Soundtrack My Heart. Both releases saw an explosive array of electronica infused post-rock songs that were admirably obscure and just infectious enough to inspire dancing of the understated, semi-shuffling variety.

The dancing is still pretty much the same tonight but there have been a few notable changes in PVT’s camp, and no I’m not just talking about the much-lamented lack of vowels. I’m talking about the much more regular inclusion of vocals in the mix, curtsey of multi-instrumentalist Richard Pike, on their most recent effort Church With No Magic.

Kicking things off with perpetually building arpeggio of ‘Timeless’, PVT show that they can still produce fantastically understated instrumental beats whilst creating an extra dimension with Pike’s low murmuring voice. All at once mumbled, soaring and staccato it seems PVT have discovered the vocal chords are as exciting as any instrument to play with. Watching as Dave Miller, the resident man in charge of the laptop, and Pike slam on their various electronic contraptions – one with fingers, one with feet – ‘Didn’t I Furious’ is just that; a furious concoction of distortions, bleeps and reverb.

‘Crimson Swan’ sees Richard Pike’s stentorian voice howl with particular fervour amidst the influx of minimalist, subdued percussion provided by his brother Lawrence and Miller. It is only in songs like ‘Community’ and ‘Light Up Bright Fires’ that all the elements that make PVT so exciting seem to come together as they shake off the haze with a bass line so low the vibrations feel like they could melt your face off, up beat glitchy tempos and a vocal range that travels from tenor to falsetto in a matter of seconds.

It is the encore of ‘O Soundtrack My Heart’ that draws the biggest applause and the most smiles, even from the band themselves who have been looking typically serious throughout tonight’s performance. Finishing on the buoyant bass lines and unsettlingly haunting howls of ‘Only The Wind Can Hear You’, it is clear that PVT have made the transition away from the more purist Battles inspired, Don Caberello style approach towards something which is uniquely their own.