PVT Reveal Album Details, ‘Homosapien’ To Be Released In UK 11th Feb 2013 On Felte
PVT play one-off London headline show on Weds 28th Nov, currently on European tour with Bloc Party
Last we heard of Australian three-piece PVT, they were exploring the outer reaches of electronic rock with their 2010 album ‘Church With No Magic’. The Australian trio have made a distinguished career out of making genre-bending guitar music, carving themselves a reputation as sonic innovators, and in 2008 becoming the first band from their homeland to sign to iconic UK label Warp. All of which makes their new album ‘Homosapien’ — their fourth studio album and Felte debut — a startling listening. The UK release date was announced today — 11th February 2013 — and the album’s artwork was revealed as well. The album tracks ‘Nightfall’ and ‘Shiver’ are available for stream, with the former available for a limited time download.
The difference is apparent from the instant you hit play on ‘Homosapien’: Richard Pike is singing. PVT’s records have featured vocals in the past of course, but this is the first release that’s placed Pike front and centre as a bona fide frontman. The change provides his band’s sound with a focal point that allows Homosapien to be more open, more intimate and yet also more direct than its predecessors. This is the document of a band as close as ever to defining ‘their sound’: a seamless collage of instruments, electronics, old keyboards and machines, and Pike’s voice.
To create the sounds that became ‘Homosapien’, the three members of PVT spent a month in complete isolation in a quiet, remote, rural corner of Australia. They set themselves up inside a cavernous, 120-year-old mansion, well beyond the reach of modernity, and set to work. With the band producing once again, the recording of ‘Homosapien’ was overseen at that remote location by young engineer Ivan Vizintin, and then mixed in London by Ben Hillier (Depeche Mode, Blur).
PVT’s sound has already been described as a “futuristic INXS”, a sonic collision of machine and man, and indeed, ‘Homosapien’ does sound like pop music from some distant future where song craft is as important as glitz and glamour. That’s not to say that PVT have abandoned the spirit of sonic adventure that’s characterized their back catalogue — Homosapien is as full of nuance and texture as anything the band have ever recorded, from floating opener ‘Shiver’, to the gothic, cathedral-like jigsaw of ‘Electric’, 3-D love song ‘Vertigo’, or the throbbing vintage drum machines and found-sound samples of ‘Evolution’ and ‘Nightfall’.
The artwork of ‘Homosapien’ features the work of Winston Chmielinski. A Brooklyn based artist known for his paintings of the human body, that are always slightly obscured but are in stark contrast to the bold and vivid colours used. “We’d been collating images for a few weeks for references for the artwork; classical Greek sculpture, Brutalist architecture, Aztec burial masks, when we came across Winston Chmielinski’s paintings quite by chance. I was immediately drawn to the cover image. It seemed to encapsulate all of the things we were looking for to visually represent the music on this album; colour, primitivism, raw emotion, and the human form. It immediately seemed like we had our record cover,” says Laurence Pike of PVT.
But their sound is more focused than ever, making this the most song-driven and spacious record they’ve made to date. Along with space and a renewed sense of identity, it would appear that in ‘Homosapien’, PVT have also found their humanity.
Pre-order available now for ‘Homosapien’ at Felte’s website.
Right now PVT are finishing up their extensive European tour supporting Bloc Party. The live schedule also includes a one-off headline show at London’s Birthdays on the 28th November. Full details are below.
PVT ‘Homosapien’ Out 11th February 2013 on Felte
Tracklist:
Shiver
Evolution
Electric
Cold Romance
Love & Defeat
Homosapien
Vertigo
Nightfall
New Morning
Casual Success
Ziggurat
Watch the intense video for ‘Nightfall’, directed by Jennifer Juniper Stratford and previously premiered by Noisey.com:
Watch captivating video clip for ‘Shiver’ directed by Australian filmmaker Tex Crick:
PVT UK & Europe shows with Bloc Party
Nov 24 Hasselt, BELGIUM – MOD
Nov 25 Paris, FRANCE – Noveau Casino
Nov 27 Gent, BELGIUM – Video
Nov 28 London, UK – Birthdays – Buy Tickets – PVT headline show
http://pvtpvt.net/
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