Video: PVT’s “Shiver”

Though Australian electro-rock trio PVT (formerly Pivot) is keeping details about its forthcoming LP under wraps, the band has graciously given a taste of what’s to come with its new video for “Shiver,” the album’s opening track.

The video below, minimal and graceful, is a fitting accompaniment for the track, which features hushed vocals lingering between warbling pop synths and sparse bass pulsations.

Qua

Qua: A Digital-Analog “One-Stop Shop” for Texture, Color, and Melody

This story first appeared in Chromatic: The Crossroads of Color and Music. Order your copy today.

Qua: Q&AQua: Q&A (Electric Dreams, 4/27/10)

Qua: “Circles”

[audio:http://alarm-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Qua_Circles.mp3|titles=Qua: “Circles”]

Given the proliferation of programmable equipment and digital production techniques, kids all over the world are growing up and playing music without ever touching a physical instrument. Who can blame them? Nearly every imaginable texture, pitch, effect, and beat is just a few clicks away. This sea change from analog to digital musicianship hasn’t just changed the way that we create music; it has changed the way that we see music too. Distinctly electronic timbres are coupled with the colorful swirls of an iTunes visualizer, the bright strobe lights of a dance club, and the neon aesthetics of genre giants like Daft Punk and MIA.

Though he grew up playing guitar in rock bands, Cornel Wilczek, better known as Australian electronic artist Qua, set aside his guitar and took the solo electronic road early in his career. His decision was made possible by a discovery of electronic music, a genre wherein Wilczek realized that he could become, as he says, a “one-stop shop.” He could handle production and technical duties without having to rely on anyone but himself.

At 17, Wilczek won a Yamaha guitar competition and moved to the USA to do session work and guitar demonstrations. “It was really quite amazing at the time,” Wilczek says, “but it was also the end of an era for me, because I had met so many of my guitar and music idols who were complete assholes. I actually came back [to Australia] and stopped playing guitar for about five years, and that’s when I found electronic music.”

PVT

Concert Photos: PVT & Warpaint @ Lincoln Hall (Chicago, IL)

Australian experimental-rock band PVT (formerly Pivot) is comprised of brothers Laurence and Richard Pike and electronic artist Dave Miller. The trio’s latest album, Church With No Magic, was released last summer on Warp, and now the band is crisscrossing the US in an extensive tour with all-girl psych-rock quartet Warpaint. ALARM contributing photographer Elizabeth Gilmore attended the show and captured these shots of both bands under the glow of Chicago’s Lincoln Hall lights.

PVT

100 Unheralded Albums from 2010

Among the thousands of under-appreciated or under-publicized albums that were released in 2010, hundreds became our favorites and were presented in ALARM and on AlarmPress.com. Of those, we pared down to 100 outstanding releases, leaving no genre unexplored in our list of this year’s overlooked gems.

Morrow vs. Hajduch

Morrow vs. Hajduch: PVT’s Church With No Magic

Scott Morrow is ALARM’s music editor. Patrick Hajduch is a very important lawyer. Each week they debate the merits of a different album.

PVT: Church With No Magic

PVT: Church With No Magic (Warp, 8/10/10)

PVT: “Light Up Bright Fires”
[audio:http://alarm-magazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/PVT_Light_Up_Bright_Fires.mp3|titles=PVT: “Light Up Bright Fires”]

[Stream all of Church With No Magic on PVT’s website.]

Morrow: Formerly known as Pivot, Australia’s PVT was formed as an improvisational quintet in the late 1990s before transitioning to an electro-rock trio.  The group maintained a number of experimental, freeform elements, but it focused on synth grooves and a mixture of live and digital beats.

Its new album, Church With No Magic, is its most composed yet, seemingly dropping the improv parts while delivering some major pop melodies and vocal hooks.

Hajduch: Most of this album sounds huge and energetic, and surprisingly unique for how boldly the band wears its influences on its sleeve.  The echoed vocals of the title track, in particular, sound exactly like Suicide without coming off as mimicry.  (The best example of Suicide worship, by the way, is The Cars‘ “Shoo Be Doo,” which is terrifying and unexpected.)