Pivot @ Nice 'N' Sleazy, 3 Oct

When Australian math rockers Pivot take the stage at Nice ‘N' Sleazy, it’s almost a challenge to the audience. Addressing an assembly of hipsters, without words, the band throws down the gauntlet with a cut that screams (and imagine an Aussie accent here): “G’head, try’n dance.” While Pivot’s set, largely mined from the critically acclaimed O Soundtrack My Heart, includes hip-shifting and hair-tossing rhythms, they – like Warp labelmates Battles – like to throw it off with discordant polyrhythms and abrupt shifts in tempo. Such tricks don’t deter the crowd long, as the heaving mass gathered tight at the front of the stage keeps moving and finger-pointing to the apexes of pivot’s epic tracks. After a dishearteningly short set, the trio re-emerges with "something a little different" for an encore – a cover of Talking Heads’ I Zimbra, which matches the band’s fetish for rhythm, albeit a little more conventionally. This stirs the crowd one last time, like a prize for passing the test. [Jason Morton]