PNAU have held a special place for me for a good few years now. When their LAST album came out (the insane, self titled one with the likes of 'Wild Strawberries' and 'Embrace') I had the pleasure of listening to many of the songs on Triple J as it was featured, despite still not being too keen personally on the whole 'electronic music' thing, let alone 'AUSTRALIAN electronic music'. The tracks from this album spoke to me and perhaps played a significant part in my foray into a wider spectrum of music. Subsequently seeing them live multiple times at various festivals around the land, and quite often on a significant amount of narcotics, I was blown away by the energy that these two guys could bring, as well as the various visuals and costumes they would make other people wear covering the array of interesting art and images from the album sleeve. Not only that, I ended up giving the self-titled album the PRESTIGIOUS honour of Javids 'Album of the Year' in whatever year it came out.. 2007 or something.. it seems so long ago..Then Empire of the Sun happened, and PNAU was left on the backburner of Australian music while Littlemore toured with world with Luke Steele and they made an absolute motza on an admittedly spiffing, if repetitive effort. Nick left, seemingly to come back and work on the new PNAU album, while Steele kept on touring and wearing that freaking hat we all secretly know would look better on Jamiroquai.
After a long time between albums PNAU are back. My levels of excitement were palpable as I stood amongst thousands of people at this years BDO waiting for them to come out. When they did it was not the PNAU I remember. Two guitarists came out on stage with the band and played for every song, old or new. If you're asking me the old songs did not sound as good as they could have, and the new songs made no distinct impression. It seems the line between kooky rave-stuff and mainstream soft-electro has been blurred. By the end of their set much of the magic was gone and I wanted to go home. That being said I'd just had Rammstein blow myself and everyone away, perhaps I wasnt ready for the timidity of this adult-contemporary stuff...
But anyway, I'm all for bands going down different avenues and I'm willing to give the album a chance when it comes out. There's a possibility that half the reason I didn't enjoy them at the BDO was because they're still working out all the music as an ensemble. Perhaps it was because that was the first time I'd seen them without the influence of the types of substances that make you do silly things and make music speak to you on a whole different level. For those reasons and more I'll be going to see them at Splendour, to give them another chance. If they don't do it for me, we'll always have 2007 I guess.
They'll be playing some shows up and down the coast if you'd like to go and judge for yourself:
26/07 - Billboard The Venue, Melbourne
27/07 - Enmore Theater, Sydney
29/07 - Splendour In The Grass
Thats right, contrary to my opinion of about a month ago, Splendour is STILL not sold out - go and get a ticket HERE - the time is PNAU...
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