Kiwi leg-up towards world domination

Pendulum always wanted to break in to radio, but say it won't change the way they make music.

Pendulum have Auckland act Concord Dawn to thank for making them one of the biggest things in world drum'n'bass.

Concord Dawn's Evan Short was the first person to pick up on Pendulum's track Vault - a steely song that would slowly but surely make the drum'n'bass masses pull their dirty jeans up and dance.

It all happened when Concord Dawn were playing a club in Pendulum's hometown of Perth in 2002.

Pendulum - made up of Rob "Anscenic" Swire, Gareth "Speed" McGrillen, and Paul "Elhornet" Harding - had formed that year. They had just finished recording Vault, and they took the recording along to the gig.

"I remember," says Swire, "saying to Gareth on the way there in the car that this is probably our best chance to get something out there because these guys are from New Zealand and they know what it's like not to come from the UK.

"They're probably going to give a track more of a chance than say Grooverider or something."

Indeed, Short did play Vault in Concord Dawn's DJ sets around the world, and more importantly, he ended up giving it to Doc Scott - one of the dons of drum'n'bass.

Scott released the song on his label 31 Records in 2003.

With Vault making a big impact on the British scene, Pendulum packed up and moved to London and now their debut album, Hold Your Colour, just released on Breakbeat Kaos, is being compared to classics like Roni Size's New Forms and Goldie's Timeless.

Whether it is comparable or not depends on who you ask because Hold Your Colour has been quite divisive in drum'n'bass circles.

For a drum'n'bass album it is a diverse mix of everything from dark, jazzy, and funky drum'n'bass, to breaks, pop and rock, and Swire admits there have been mixed reactions.

"You've got one group of people saying it's better than they expected and it lives up to the hype.

"Then you've got some people who wished we'd gone a bit darker like the old stuff and that we should have put some of the old vibe back into our tracks."

But Pendulum, who play at 4:20 on Auckland's K Rd tonight, believe drum'n'bass is a limiting genre and with Hold Your Colour they've evolved the form.

"And I think that's half the fun in writing it, that it is so limited that you're forced to look for other ways to do it," he says.

They are also keen to take their music to as many people as possible and by writing tracks like the ragga-tinged Tarantula, and the jumped-up, Fasten Your Seatbelt, they could be bringing drum'n'bass to a radio near you.

"I'd say that radio thing was always in the back of our minds, but," he says, "it wasn't really going to change the way we made music or stop us from doing what we wanted."

* Pendulum appear tonight, 4:20, K Rd, Auckland

* Album: Hold Your Colour (out now)