“Four minutes into the ecstatic rush of soft focus drum’n’bass on “Montecore”, everything stops, just like the moment in a fireworks shower when the explosions of light and sound stop and you think, “Is that it?” All of sudden there’s another explosion and you’re right back in the middle of the show.”

Six years in the making, Pivot took a long time on their debut album – Seb Chan from Cyclic Defrost says he went through a pile of old CDs the other day and found at least four previously demoed versions of the album. It’s easy to see why considering the five members collaborate so widely it sometimes feels like a super-group (even though Pivot came first) recording as Triosk for Leaf, collaborating with Jan Jelinek for ~Scape and traveling through Europe in Burnt Friedman and Uwe Schmidt’s group Flanger.

And people love the album, which was released on Melbourne’s Sensory Projects, the national broadcaster Triple J has even nominated it for the inaugural J Award (shaping up to be a pretty decent shortlist). Their usual comparison is Tortoise, but dropping names like Squarepusher, DJ Shadow and John Tejada’s I Am Not A Gun might give you a good idea of their sound too. I said in my review of the record that: “Describing electronic music as a soundtrack is so ’95, but the images evoked by Pivot’s music are impossible to ignore. I can almost see it on the movie screen: sick-in-the-head lead character who you’ve come to understand, even like, but he’s spiraling out of control, hitting out and desperate for understanding.”

Richard Pike was cool enough to take some time out from touring Europe with Flanger to answer my questions.

You took your time with the debut album for Pivot, are you happy with the results?
Yes. Good things take time. We didn’t want to do a ‘nice’ album. We spent years developing what we do as a band, because we wanted to make music that sounds unique and singular. I feel like not many people do this in Australia. Everyone just wants to get a CD out before they turn 23.

Can you give me a run-through of the various projects/bands/collabs you’re involved in?
Pivot, Flanger, Gold Mice. I also co-produce Triosk.
At the moment I’m touring with Flanger in Europe. Myself and Laurence (my brother in Pivot) collaborated on Flanger’s 4th album ‘Spirituals’. Via mail and internet. Flanger is an electronic duo, of Burnt Friedman and Atom Heart, and I’m the first singer to record with this project. Which is pretty exciting. Flanger influenced Pivot when we first started, before I ever met them.
I met Burnt through Pivot. We played a gig together in Sydney and started collaborating.
I help produce Triosk, which has Pivot members Laurence and Adrian. With this group I edit and shape their music, that they write as a trio. So I have a very different role there.
Gold Mice is a new group I am working on. Nothing released yet.

It’s probably confusing to someone who listens to only Coldplay and inevitably will ask why don’t you do one band? Which one do you like the best?

How do you work in Pivot? in Triosk? Is there much overlap between your different groups and all the other collaborations? How do tracks/songs develop?
Essentially they are similar, but Triosk is a lot more conceptual in process. I just help them shape it into a releasable album, and add some tricks, computer production. I do the same thing with Pivot, but our process is based around the 5 piece creating together and a lot of post-production. By that I mean a lot more structuring and album producing in a traditional pop/rock producer sense. The band needs a producer to make the music solid. That’s my job.
Of course there is overlap. You hear it in the music. How we develop the songs is just a matter of working on it till it sounds good, and fits the vision.

How naturally do the electronic elements fit into your music? As musicians, do you find it difficult to improvise with electronics for example?
Not at all. We just work until it sounds good. We love those sounds. It would only be difficult if we didn’t like those sounds.
But I’m rarely happy with a piece of programming straight away. I spend a lot of time on particular sounds.

I find Montecore stuck in my head all the time, tell me about your scales addiction?
Scales addiction? I love melody. Montecore was a melody that came into my head, the same way the Beatles wrote songs. It’s just a simple pop melody, that you can meow meow meow along to.

Do you feel part of a music community in Sydney or a wider Australian or international one?
Playing overseas I feel the world is smaller than you think. Pivot is not distributed OS yet, but that will come next I hope.
But Sydney is a tiny scene really. And Australia not that much bigger. All bookers, musos and managers know each other. I feel part of both Australia and OS now, even though the music I make is so underground.

I interviewed Jorgen Munkeby from Shining/Jaga Jazzist a few weeks ago and he couldn’t stop saying how important his musical training is for the music he makes, how important is musical training to the music you make?
Well, with Jaga Jazzist, of course, that music needs training and discipline. I feel the opposite. I think the more you learn the more convoluted things become. I never wanted to be just a technician. That’s boring music. I’ll leave that to Steve Vai and Yngwie Malmsteen.

Is there anything you’re trying to convey in your music?
I always say this: the balance between past and future, analog and digital, good and evil. An ongoing battle high on a mountain, a place I like to call Danger Mountain. I have a very distinct idea of what I want it to say. But it is purely musical. Music can never describe anything directly but itself.

What do you think of the small label scene in Australia? In your opinion, how is that scene being affected by filesharing and the Internet?
There is a very very small label scene. The majors are small labels now. Ringtones are the new hit singles, and music writing will adapt to that. If you wanna make money you’ve got to play gigs. Or write a great ringtone.

Pivot are back in Sydney and playing this Sunday night at the Abercrombie Hotel (corner of Abercrombie Street and Broadway in the city). Melbourne’s Mountains In The Sky are supporting, plus Levins and I will be playing records between bands.