It’s safe to say PNAU are well and truly back in action. After dropping their catchy AF bonkers comeback single ‘Chameleon’ late last year and embarking on a fistful of tour dates around the AU for the Hot Dub Wine Machine mini-fest (plus a surprise reunion show in Newcastle) Nick Littlemore’s other band are primed to drop a brand new album into our laps pretty. darn. soon.
Speaking with triple J, Littlemore reveals that the follow-up to 2011’s Soft Universe will “definitely” be out in 2017.
“Hopefully it’ll be a few months from now,” he says. “It’ll definitely be this year.”
The other half of Empire Of The Sun also told JJJ that the new record saw his older brother, Sam Littlemore, officially inducted into PNAU’s lineup “to help with production duties and songwriting and all kinds of things”.
The littler Littlemore and bandmate Peter Mayes further confirmed that ‘Chameleon’ vocalist Shakira Marshall AKA Kira Divine features on half the songs on the forthcoming disc, alongside a bunch of other musical guests including “Drummer Tully Ryan, [French singer] Petite Meller, [US The Voice contestant] Chris Mann”, and “Vera Blue, which you guys will have heard of”.
ICYMI: Blue previously teamed up with Littlemore last year for the 2 Leaves album project, and the pair’s musical love affair has apparently continued to blossom with the singer now wrapping her golden pipes around at least one tune on PNAU’s comeback LP.
Speaking of which, it turns outs that the long wait between PNAU albums happened because the fellas made an entire new record but then binned it because it just wasn’t their vibe.
“I promise we’re not lazy, we do work very hard but there’s always a long time between drinks for us but we made a record then we kind of ditched it and decided to start again. We don’t wanna release it ’til we’re happy,” Mayes tells the J’s.
While Littlemore adds: “It just seemed like it wasn’t us, we made all this music and we didn’t really like it. Halfway along, I had a life-changing experience and met Buddha under a tree. So the record didn’t really reflect where we are at, at the time. So we deconstructed it and we started put it back together. It was a lot clearer…”
Well there you have it.
As we wait patiently for PNAU’s new album to finally arrive, you can catch them playing live as part of this year’s Groovin The Moo festival, as well as at these remaining Hot Dub Wine Machine shows.
