Anthony Pateras wants to reclaim the piano. In the liner notes for Gravissima – a collaboration as Pivixki with drummer Max Kohane – Pateras reckons the instrument has had some difficulty moving with the times. He says it’s often likened to a luxury item that’s “silent and expensive in the corner”, or a glossy tardis that teleports “18th century Vienna or 1950's New York to some present day cultural dystopia, only to be poorly mimicked ad infinitum”.

Pateras certainly knows his way around the piano. He’s the composer-in-residence at the Australian National Academy Of Music; has released music on labels, including John Zorn’s Tzadik imprint; composed for major orchestras; and played with a multitude of likeminded artists, including Oren Ambarchi, Christian Fennesz and Melbourne friends Sean Baxter and David Brown (as Pateras/Baxter/Brown).

However, it’s in his collaboration with Kohane as Pivixki, where his reclaiming of the piano comes into full effect. Note: when I say “reclaiming” I mean pounding the unholy crap out of it alongside Kohane's dynamic, intensely fast and technical drumming style. When I say “full effect” I mean “disembowelment”. This album is recommended for fans of Discordance Axis and Iannis Xenakis, and the combination of piano and drums is an avant-grind tour de force.

Kohane – who has drummed with some of the Australia's best hardcore punk acts including Far Left Limit, George W. Bush, Terra Firma, Cut Sick and Agents Of Abhorrence – plays with a frenetic style that balances chaos and skilled precision. It’s the kind of drumming that sounds great in jazz clubs or punk squats.

While their debut EP sounded like a clash of cultures at times, on Gravissima the two instruments (with the addition of electronics) have melded into a more organic, but no less powerful sound. On tracks like 'Gravissima 64', the duo fuses together effortlessly, constantly moving from quiet to loud to shredding. They’re also not afraid to get a little melodic in parts. Perhaps it's the influence of producer Casey Rice, but on pieces such as 'A Shrewd Manipulation of the Facts', Pateras and Kohane breathe new life into “experimentation”, imbuing the avant garde with a more coherent feel.

But it's not all sonic carnage, the opening of 'Hideous Men' begins with a tense piano line that wouldn’t sound out of place on the Necks soundtrack to The Boys, before developing into a more groove-oriented jam. And while it’s not the kind of tune you'd expect to hear in a Skopje discotheque, the tinkling electronics and more subtle drumming on 'Masso-Dissco' works well in accompanying Pateras' solid piano.

by Tim Scott