PVA - Blush (LP) - Blue Vinyl

PVA’s debut album, Blush, arrives with the kind of confidence you only get from a band that has road tested every groove in front of a sweaty room. Released on Ninja Tune on 14 October 2022, it follows the London trio’s Toner EP and turns their post punk meets club energy into a full length statement that still feels unruly in the best way. Ella Harris and Josh Baxter trade vocals like two late night narrators switching between intimacy and detachment, while Louis Satchell’s drumming snaps the songs into focus. You can hear the push and pull between live kit and machines, a conversation between warehouse rave and guitar band that rarely feels this natural.

If you came in through Talks, the song that first put them on festival bills and later got the Mura Masa remix a Grammy nomination, Blush feels like the next level. The rhythms hit harder, the synths have more bite, and there is a new clarity in how the band frames tension. Hero Man, one of the album’s flag bearers, rides a churning bass figure that refuses to stay still. Harris sings like she is both inside the storm and watching it from the balcony. It is the kind of track that makes more sense with lights low and volume high, and it lands even better on PVA vinyl, where the low end has room to breathe.

PVA’s trick is to keep the songs hooky without sanding off the edges. A lot of bands say they are “influenced by the club.” PVA actually put that lesson to work. Percussion patterns loop in hypnotic ways, then tilt, then break, so the room picks up a second wind. Synths wobble and scuff the corners, not as decoration but as part of the rhythm engine. Baxter’s vocals come in cool and measured, Harris counters with a clipped, urgent tone, and suddenly what started as an austere pulse becomes a song you want to live inside. Critics heard it too. The Guardian, NME, and Pitchfork all clocked how Blush tightens the screws without losing the band’s sense of play, and the album found its way into plenty of year end conversations.

There is a physicality to this record that comes from PVA’s background on London stages, especially the South London circuit where guitars and 4 a.m. synths mix freely. You can picture how these tracks bloom at Corsica Studios or in a festival tent just before midnight. That live DNA makes Blush work as a headphones album as well. Subtle details peek out on repeat listens, tiny vocal harmonies and synth clicks that color the space between the kick drum and the bassline. The sequencing respects dynamics too, the way a good DJ set does, so when the record shifts gears it feels earned rather than abrupt.

Because they sit on Ninja Tune, the production quality is high without getting glossy. The drums stay muscular, the bass sits warm and forward, and the vocals ride right on top without crowding the mix. That balance pays off on vinyl. If you find a copy of Blush vinyl in a Melbourne record store, pick it up. The wax gives the floor toms a chewiness that digital sometimes flattens, and the stereo image opens up the synth arpeggios so they shimmer around the vocal. It is the kind of record that rewards a clean needle and a patient side A to side B listen. For anyone looking to buy PVA records online, this is the one to start with, and it pairs nicely on the shelf with other PVA albums on vinyl and kindred spirits from the Ninja Tune family.

What makes Blush stick is how personal it feels inside such a precise framework. The lyrics carry the anxiety of city nights and the push for connection in crowded spaces, small fragments that read like notes typed on a phone between trains. The music never treats those lines as window dressing. It lifts and frames them, then lets them dissolve into rhythm again, which is very much how those nights actually feel. By the time the needle lifts, you get the sense of a band that has figured out how to graft dance language to songcraft without losing either.

If you are building a collection and scanning for PVA vinyl, this album is a keeper. It tells the story of a young band taking the heat of their live show and etching it into grooves, confident enough to leave air in the mix and trust the kick drum to do its work. Blush is the sound of London after dark, caught on tape, pressed to wax, ready for whatever room you bring it to. And if you are browsing vinyl records Australia wide, from big shops to small boutiques, keep an eye out. This one belongs in the bag.