PVT Ask, 'What Does It Mean To Be Australian?'

To speak with Laurence Pike is to speak with a man who, despite well over a decade of professional exposure to convince him to do likewise, still resolutely prioritises the transformative power and artistry of music over the more cynical philosophies preferred by its accompanying industry models.

"I think it's a real commercial music mentality for a band to only allow themselves to be one thing," he muses. "I mean, I get it. It's basically about branding. If your band changes their sound over a number of albums, your branding pretty much goes out the window. And, really, that's a problem in the music industry - because then they have no idea how to market you. But the thing is, none of us have ever really been interested in marketing. I mean, we want people to be able to access the music. But, the marketing is just not important to us."

"For me, the artists I've always admired have been people who believed the music had to move forward."

It's an attitude that's apparent throughout the history of Pike's best-known project, electronic pop experimentalists PVT. Hardly unsuccessful, the Sydney/London trio have nevertheless often made life harder for themselves by shifting sound from record to record. "The thing is, the shifts that seem dramatic on record don't seem that dramatic to us. Because, you know, we've had three years of experiences and music and meals. Bottles of wine. Whatever," Pike laughs. "There's a journey there that we've taken and the music naturally morphs with it. For me, the artists I've always admired have been people who believed the music had to move forward. You know, when I was a kid, I was obsessed with Miles Davis — that was his dogma. That was his drive. In PVT, we've always felt the same."

With their latest album New Spirit, PVT have once again shifted their identity. After exploring more conventional song structures with 2013's Homosapien, the band have blasted off into more sprawling and experimental soundscapes with their follow-up. But, New Spirit also feels like something different from the band's usual shifts. Thematically concerned with exploring what it means to be an Australian in these times of political conflict and confusion, New Spirit feels like PVT's most honest, organic and weightiest record to date.

"I see it as a reaction and engagement with politics," Pike says. "We wanted to explore this idea of Australian identity. There were many times, during the process of making the record, where we just felt like, 'What fucking country are we in?!' Just feeling, you know, genuinely and utterly confounded by the state of the country. Like, it's not political. It just felt like something we had to engage with and acknowledge. I hope it's worked."