With Beyond The Valley celebrating their biggest electronic music lineup yet, it seems only fitting that the mighty PNAU feature as one of the headliners for this year’s party. Since their 1999 debut Sambanova, and across five studio albums, the ARIA winning duo made up of Nick Littlemore and Peter Mayes (which recently expanded to a trio with the addition of brother Sam Littlemore) have ruled the airwaves leaving electronic music lovers the world over vibrating to their feel good electro inspired genius, most recently due to their new release Changa, an album five years in the making.
“It’s been great,” Mayes says of the new release, “but it’s one of those situations where you haven’t done a record in a while – which is quite normal for us – you really need to make it something great, and I think we’ve done that.
“We did start it four years ago though, and we sort of had an album and then we kind of ditched it and started again which you do from time to time,” he admits. “Nick and I do the Empire of the Sun records as well so that takes up a lot of our time, amongst other things that we do – we always have something on the go. We just felt like it was time to do a PNAU record and this record is very different to the last record. It’s much more of a party record and it’s a great record to play live – it’s much more fun.”
Characterised by moments of pure dance floor joy, Changa pays homage to the rave spirit in PNAU from which they emerged from, featuring recent cuts ‘Go Bang’, ‘Into The Sky’, ‘Young Melody’ and ‘Control Your Body’, alongside 2016’s anthemic ‘Chameleon’ which has since amassed 35 million combined streams, been nominated for two ARIAs and is a triple platinum selling single.
As big believers in collaboration, the PNAU experience is furthered on Changa with the transcending vocals of New Yorker Kira Divine throughout, alongside guest collaborators including Vera Blue.
“We’ve always been huge believers in collaboration, and if you look at all the other things we’ve done, there’s always a lot of collaborators on there,” Mayes explains. “Once we started working with Kira in the studio and including her voice on our records including ‘Chameleon’, it [the record] really changed. We had a new sound and it was inspiring to work with her. That sort of shifted our direction a bit musically. There’s a certain magic about that, about working with new people.”
Veterans of countless festivals and inspired live appearances, and as their brand newest ‘Go Bang’ suggests, PNAU will take an already stellar BTV lineup further out into deep space where the promise good times and party vibes are guaranteed, performing alongside Oz electro royalty The Presents and Cut Copy.
“To be honest, I think that’s the kind of band that we are,” Mayes says of the festival scene. “It’s great to do your own show where people come to see just you, but at a festival you get the huge crowds and the energy is there, it seems to be the place where our music works best. That’s what we really enjoy doing, it brings the positivity and we like to bring the vibe,” he smiles before continuing, “and it seems to have changed a lot too. There are a lot of new festivals to play that we’ve never played before, and we did a lot this year; we did Groovin’ the Moo and Listen Out for the first time, so it’s all really exciting because it’s a whole new landscape.”
18 years on from their inception, PNAU maintain their reputation as one of Australia’s Best Festival Acts. Crowds at this years Beyond The Valley can prepare for a spectacular performance as PNAU bring their most diversifying and fierce album to life. PNAU are back.
When & Where: Beyond The Valley @ Lardner Park, in Warragul – Thursday, December 28 2017 — Monday January 1 2018
Written by Talia Rinaldo