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The opening of Pnuma Trio's April 14th show at The Brass Lantern in Reading, PA

If music were life, American electronica would be a teenager.

Sometime over the last decade, ambitious folks on the other side of the world—in Australia and Japan—kicked off a trend that captured the essence of entrancing, DJ house spinnings and bottled it up in the arena of live, performed music.

It slowly leaked west and, thus, homegrown “livetronica” was born.

Virginia’s native sons, the Pnuma Trio—Ben Hazlegrove (keyboards), Lane Shaw (drums) and Alex Botwin (bass)—have tweaked the prototypical electronic layout to create a sound all their own. They splice in jazz soloing to complement the music’s inherent drum-and-bass lifeblood.

“What we’re really trying to do is make people not be able to sit still,” Botwin says via cell phone from the band’s tour pit stop in Asheville, North Carolina. “But if they are, we really want them to feel the emotions we convey in our music.”

In the realm of electronica, strong emotions go with the territory. Pnuma music steadily builds and builds on itself, reaching breathtaking peaks before toppling over into pristine, sonic fission.

On top of the band’s stripped-down, three-piece attack, Botwin infuses computer-generated effects by exploring software called Live. He programmed his laptop with 60 different samples that he can splash in at will over a driving and oft times funky beat.

Botwin stresses that Pnuma music centers around raw musical creativity—not futuristic technology.

“We don’t rely on the computer for anything really,” he says. “I come up with certain effects or samples that I can reprogram into beats to add to what Lane is playing.

“It’s a totally live-based program, so every night that we’re using it, it’s completely different. It’s not like we’re hitting a loop on the computer and it plays over and over—the loops are constantly changing.”

This leaves no room for the musicians to hide behind the equipment. Botwin pre-programs his software to string together sequences of samples that are only effective if the trio locks itself in an airtight groove.

Access to updated computer equipment—even while the band is on the road—helps the creative process, he explains. Bass and keyboards can be recorded directly onto a portable device and toyed with later.

“We’re integrating computers a lot more now—especially in the studio process,” he says. “There’s so much ease being able to have a portable studio wherever you go.”

Pnuma’s travels over the past year have whisked them anywhere and everywhere.

Literally.

Botwin cites last year’s globe-stretching journey to play an Australian trance festival and hooking up with genre forefathers, the Disco Biscuits, at the band’s fourth annual summer festival, Camp Bisco.

“Seasoned musicians know tricks,” he says. “[Marc] Brownstein [the Biscuit’s bass wiz] showed me how to make my bass sound better.”

Music often progresses slowly. Livetronica feeds speed to the evolution of American electronica music—and lights a fire under its ass.