Last night I opted to miss ninety minutes of watching Arsenal players fumbling scoring opportunities by bundling the ball off the opposition’s goal line like people who didn’t quite grasp the fundamental point of the game, and instead opted for an alternative highlight in last night’s North London entertainment listings: a first UK appearance by the newest signings to Warp records, Pivot.

A brief mention for Three Trapped Tigers who, disappointingly, were not real tigers, the Luminaire having negligently allowed their expensively-acquired big cat license to lapse.  There were three of them though, guitar, drums, and keyboard for the most part, and they were enjoyably mathy but with a proggy undercurrent, everything was multi-sectioned, and nothing was left without an extended piano middle section.  Which is probably as it should be.

And so to Australia’s Pivot.  Although they have played in the UK in other combinations before – I saw drummer Laurenz Pike play here with Triosk last year, supported by laptopper (I’m using it, deal with it) Dave Miller – this was, to my knowledge their first time over here as a group.  “About time!”, someone rightly shouted out from the audience.  Pivot only recently signed to the eminent Warp, who clearly fancy them achieving the kind of rock/electronics crossover success they enjoyed with Battles; a new single is imminent with the album to follow later in the year.

Their first song began, as indeed several did, with a long, tension-building intro.  Big-haired drummer Pike (not to be confused with shorter-haired guitarist Pike, colleague and brother) is well-versed in this sort of thing from his work in the excellent Triosk, who have entire songs which sound like long tension-building intros, and he was to the fore here, tapping out intricate little rhythms for Miller to chew on, and chew up.  This axis (which also features in Roam the Hello Clouds) was the, er, pivot on which Pivot rested, and if that sentence sounds geometrically baffling, at times so was the music.  Their angular punk funk and scratchy math rock leanings were reset on a course plotted by Miller and Pike the hairier’s compass, a course which took them through improv jazz and hip hop, via tortuous and highly-impressive Autechre-like rhythmic excursions. 

And there was more: the single “In The Blood”, and the forthcoming album’s title track rollicked along rambunctiously, and at one point they all stepped to stage centre behind keyboards for a number which couldn’t have been more Kraftwerkian if they had all stepped to stage centre behind keyboards. After seeing this most diverse and enjoyable live show, it is pretty clear Pivot know exactly what they are doing on stage: there is no danger of the ball hitting this lot on the arse and bouncing harmlessly out of play.