PVT – New Spirit

After their pop-aspiring last record Homosapians found Australian electronic experimentalists PVT playing arena gigs in support of Gotye, New Spirit marks a sharp change in direction, leaning further into straight-up dance music than previous efforts whilst employing colder, gloomier sounds. Eerie, sustained synths and ghostly digital reverb makes this latest effort a tense and uneasy listen, with Richard Pike and co adopting a dark techno-futurism that takes cues from patron saint of neon dystopia El-P.

Nine-minute single Morning Mist, Rock Island Bend is a slow-boil banger named after an environmentalist photograph that's a renowned symbol of Australian activism, suggesting PVT have politics on the mind. If so, their diagnosis is bleak: 'New heart, old blood. New ark, same flood,' Pike monotones on the title track, along with a litany of similarly unfortunate continuities.

Their pessimism takes a corny turn on Fake Sun in China (referencing Beijing's notorious sunrises broadcast via billboard) thanks to blinding clunker of a line: 'It looks like science fiction, but it’s science fact'. Murder Mall, however, offers a more effective snapshot of humanity in decline – a stabbing witnessed beneath the fluorescent glow of a chain store, unfolding in queasy slow motion. Woozy synth chords imbue the scene with a perverse mundanity that feels all too familar. At its best, New Spirit wallows in this kind of everyday helplessness.

Listen to: Kangaroo, Murder Mall