PVT - Church With No Magic

Yet more victims of the copyright racket, Australia's Pvt have been treading well-trodden paths for several years now. Better known as Pivot, with a couple of albums and several remixes under their belt that were fairly well received by critics, they resurface under the protective wing of Warp with their new work, titled "Church With No Magic".

It's 1999 when five kids from Sydney start playing together, taking their cue from the post-rock mapped out by the Tortoise (McEntire will produce their second album for them nine years later) and blending it with a geometric math sensibility. The Pike brothers - Lawrence and Richard - are the true driving force of the quintet reduced to a trio. An ever-moving locomotive, carving deep grooves into every mile it covers.

"Church With No Magic" comes across as a loose, disjointed album. Ten tracks chase after the most disparate reference points, making it extremely hard to find a foothold for any genre definition. Ten pieces in which synth expanses, electronic tangles, pop winks, Eighties regurgitations, math, post-rock and whatever else you can think of all chase one another. Yet the feeling is that behind the apparent chaos there lies a logical order.

"Church With No Magic" is a Ferrari with the handbrake pulled, its estranging effect matching the beauty it gives off. The songs live reflected in a pool of stagnant water, trembling as the surface ripples. And it's the shadows of passing clouds that tint them in pastel hues or shade them according to every kind of perspective trick.

The new age liturgy in synthetic sauce of the intro "Community" opens the door to "Light Up Bright Fires", shaped like a Liars track with its sharp edges slightly smoothed off. The evanescent scenery of the title track gathers the moods of math meeting coldwave, and the iron curtain resolves into an anthology-worthy synth progression, set against an ambient backdrop that dissolves into descending electronic streams.

The gorgeous "Crimson Swan" too, which starts off winking at rock minimalism before veering its shockwave toward the pop grandiloquence of Church, casts a spell from the very first listen.

The electricity of "Window", in its teeming pulse and constant layering games, recalls an anaesthetized Battles, "The Quick Mile" is a pop gem à-la Patrick Wolf. And testifying to the album's incredible versatility comes "Circle Of Friends", the song Grizzly Bear never managed to write. The rarefied perspective of "Timeless", caught between synth and noir, and the spectral, enveloping lullaby answering to the title "Only The Wind Can Hear You" bring things full circle.

"Church With No Magic" is an album to be uncovered meticulously, probing the endless range of solutions it offers. Ten gems to break apart and reassemble in a puzzle of limitless combinations. A fresh, dynamic work of fine craftsmanship that crosses the most disparate genres. A masterpiece of pop retro-futurism.

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23/07/2010