How Changa Changed PNAU

For years the cherished Australian dance duo PNAU have competed in an epic battle of the bands with their international side-project Empire Of The Sun. But late last year PNAU released their biggest-ever track in Chameleon, featuring the effervescent singer/dancer Shakira Marshall - a Lauryn Hill associate who's now in their live band. This month, having recently blitzed Listen Out, they're hitting the summer festival circuit behind their fifth album, Changa - a blend of psychedelic rave pop.

Today Nick Littlemore and Peter Mayes are in their Los Angeles studio. Littlemore readily identifies himself on the speakerphone: "I'm the really nasal one". Yet it soon becomes apparent that PNAU's quasi-frontman is in a zone of his own, with Mayes keeping things on track. Lounging on the couch Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham used when he dropped in to contribute to Empire Of The Sun's 2016 album Two Vines, PNAU are hilariously random. "How would you describe this couch?" Littlemore quizzes his cohort. Mayes laughs, "It's kind of like a sort of nothing green colour."

Littlemore and Mayes have been allies since they began partying as Sydney school kids. Launching as a bedroom vehicle, PNAU assumed mythic status with 1999's filter disco classic Sambanova - pulled from record stores due to its uncleared samples. They attracted a surprise champion in Sir Elton John with 2007's eponymous third album - on which, significantly, future Empire Of The Sun frontman Luke Steele made a cameo. John signed PNAU to his management company - and they'd "versus" him for the hit mash-up album Good Morning To The Night. Littlemore fondly notes how John "never forgets anyone's name," adding, "it's his thoughtfulness."

Mind, PNAU expressed dissatisfaction with their last album, 2011's rock-stabbed Soft Universe. Indeed, Littlemore is notoriously self-critical in interviews. "I guess we are quite humble in some ways," he drawls. In fact, PNAU have consistently resisted formula. "I think most of our albums have actually been quite different," Mayes posits. Still, they appreciate the forbearance of their fans. "They've been very patient," Littlemore says. Mayes concurs, "We certainly put some crap out over the years."

However, after scrapping an earlier album, PNAU are content with Changa. "We've been around this game for a little while now and to be putting out records and for people to make a song and dance about it is an absolute privilege and a pleasure and an honour," Littlemore exudes. "We are dutiful servants of the musical zeitgeist and we will continue to search and to plunder and to explore - but to have an audience there makes our journey all the more worth it."

Changa is a cosmic, if eccentric, trip into dance music nostalgia that somehow sounds 'now'. "We've made a record called Changa, 'cause we smoked [the drug] changa - and you get really into another dimension when you do that," Littlemore says, proceeding to discuss the multiverse.

Mayes holds that Changa is for playing out. "I think the most important thing, and what we've come to realise over the years, is that we belong at the festivals. That's where it seems to really light up for us. The music and the way we do our show, it just seems to work beautifully in that setting."

In 2016 PNAU expanded into a trio - Littlemore's older brother, Sam (aka Sam La More), who co-produced PNAU, joined them officially. Has this changed the dynamic? "How do you start an answer that you're not sure where you're gonna go with it?" Littlemore teases. "[Sam] was doing such great work - it's slightly more commercial than what we were doing at the time. We had come off the back of Soft Universe, which was sort of a departure for us - and not that we lost our way, but we wanted to try some real attack. It's a very modern moment in music. Sam was doing that [music] with Peking Duk and a few other cats. So we decided to do something together - and it just worked out. It was one song and it just kept going - we didn't mind his presence. Adding anyone into a two-person dynamic can be tricky at times, but I think the proof's in the pudding and the record's really good."

Unusually, Littlemore and Mayes are currently juggling new Empire Of The Sun and PNAU albums (they're also mysteriously recording with Montaigne). "It's a bit of a double helix right now and it's spinning," Littlemore philosophises. "A lot of people, when they go to the multiverse, they see a kind of jester-type figure..."