If you believe the media then New York is full of cupcake start-up shops, rap beefs and punks. One experimental pop quintet is trying to change all that. Their name is Pavo Pavo and they’ve just released one of the most eagerly awaited albums of the year. After meeting at Yale, where they studied music, Eliza Bagg (violin/synth/vocals), Oliver Hill (guitar/synth/vocals), Nolan Green (guitar/vocals), Austin Vauhn (drums) and Ian Romer (bass), started making skewed pop. Their music is full of cultural signposts that show their collective influences. Vast alt-country soundscapes rub shoulders with indie sensibilities, 60s sci-fi motifs, psych pop synths and Beatles-esque harmonies. There are some big ideas at play here, along with some delightful melodies.

‘Ran Ran Run’ gets the album going in fine form. Sounding like Emmy The Great covering 10cc while Wendy Carlos produces, ‘Ran Ran Run’ is four minutes of delightful hooks and laid-back rhythms. It sounds like a setting sun is emanating from your speakers washing your room in an orange hue. ‘Annie Hall’ is as neurotic and quirky as the film it is based on.

Next comes the first bump on the album. ‘A Quiet Time With Spaceman Sputz’ is a good idea, but it could be tighter and drags in places. Next to the sharp dose of pop of ‘Wiserway’ and ‘Somewhere In Iowa’ it feels like ‘A Quiet Time With Spaceman Sputz’ is on the wrong album with its haunting, laconic, instrumental vibe. So far the music has been upbeat and poppy but on ‘A Quiet Time With Spaceman Sputz’ Pavo Pavo push themselves. Unfortunately the results are jarring after what has come before. It doesn’t quite gel properly.

‘The Aquarium’ is a dose of glossed out harmony over a bed of wonky synths and ad-hoc bass-lines. In a lot of ways it feels like walking through an aquarium. When you look at the fish straight on they look normal, take a side step to the left and they resemble creatures from another dimension. This song is the same. Just when you think it’s a standard pop song, it moves slightly to the left and everything is skewed and twisted. ‘John (A Little Time)’ feels like Wings/Paul McCartney being covered by Vangelis during his Beaubourg phase. All the elements of a pop banger are in there, but they’ve been moved about, cut up and reassembled so they resemble something new, fun and quirky. The album closes with ‘2020, We’ll have Nothing Going On’. This is where Pavo Pavo really show what they’re made of. At six minutes it’s the longest track on the album but, instead of a long and drawn out jam track, Pavo Pavo have created a song that twists and skews its way along. When it ends you are unsure whether to play it, or the album again.

This is the sound of a band finding their feet. Pavo Pavo know what they want to do and they know what they want to sound like, but it doesn’t all quite work. Songs like ‘Ran Ran Run’, ‘Wiserway’, ‘The Aquarium’ and ‘2020, We’ll Have Nothing Going On’ are nigh on flawless, full of shiny pop hooks and Beatles-esque psych: melodies that conjure up the past, while reminding us it’s 2016. However, some of the other tracks aren’t quite as inventive and the instrumentals don't quite work as, for me, it’s all about the vocals and how they hang like a haze. Next to them, their slight flaws are magnified. Having said that, this is a very strong and clever debut album, with a couple of tweaks it could have been the masterpiece we hoped for but come 2020 we’ll have plenty to go on!
Nick Roseblade

Read our New Music Q&A with Pavo Pavo HERE.

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