About five years ago, my younger brother and I constructed a makeshift home recording studio. The intention was that we�d take full advantage of the leisure afforded by university holidays and record the art-rock magnum opus we knew was inside us.

The equipment was basic�guitar, bass, piano, computer, cheap Casio keyboard�and our musicianship almost non-existent. Nevertheless, we were armed with complete self-belief and fuelled by our favourite albums�Mogwai, Red Snapper, My Bloody Valentine, Hal Hartley movie soundtracks. Great albums have been made from fusing post-rock jam-band aesthetics, live instruments, hip-hop sampling, and electronic beats. Ours was not one of them.

Last year I uncovered what our album should have sounded like: Pivot�s Make Me Love You.

This Sydney-based quintet makes a sound that�s not too dissimilar to Chicago-based jazzy post-rock bands like Tortoise and The Sea and Cake. The elements are all there, from Richard Pike�s Jeff Parker-like guitar playing, through to the use of unconventional time signatures and odd instrumentation. Still, the sunny ambience is much more Harbour City than Windy City. I imagine this band jamming in a sunlit garage in shorts and sandals.

What first grabbed me about Pivot was their unconventional use of turntables. In a radio interview last year, I heard dub-plate maestro Dave Bowman explain that unlike most rock band DJs, he doesn�t exist solely for street-cred seeking scratches, but to add unusual melodies. Take the violin line in �Artificial Horizon,� as it cuts in and out�a spectral melody from the upper rooms of a haunted house.

Even when the instruments are made of strings and skin, rather than grooves in vinyl, the band�s virtuosity and knack for arrangements is apparent. The grinding drum and bass groove of �I May Be Gone for Some Time� would be menacing if not for the offsetting delicacy of synth washes and a xylophone (!) line. The fusion of dark trip-hop and cool jazz isn�t new, but it�s rarely executed so infectiously.

A similar combination of lock-tight rhythms and subtle atmospherics is used to even greater effect in penultimate track �Kirsten Dunst.� What it has to do with the blonde starlet, I have no idea. The only similarity between the two in my mind is that I have a deep affection for both. Kirsten and the song remind me of riding a bike in the spring sunshine. That�s probably just because I listened to the song doing exactly that.

My band won�t change your life. Hell, it didn�t even change mine. But Pivot�they just might.

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