#COLD HEART SONG UPDATE#
#COLD HEART SONG PLUS#

1 smash in Germany in 2013), “Chameleon,” and “Go Bang” (both Top 10 hits in Australia around five years ago) feature layered vocals and hypnotic, primal-yet-futuristic repetitive chanting refrains, set to house music inspired beats. Then, the trio fine-polished the tune via adding elements of two other Elton John tracks, including directly sampling a choir’s chant from John’s “Where’s the Shoorah?”Ĭhants embedded within songs have become sort of a de-facto calling card for Pnau, as singles such as their “Changes” (which became a No. We thought we could make some chords around that, and then, it was just a matter of finding other Elton tracks that would work with that. Says Mayes: “Nick initially sent me a cut-up he had done of ‘Sacrifice’ which at that time was just bits and pieces of the chorus and stuff, and I thought that was interesting because I always loved the melodies in ‘Sacrifice’ and the initial idea was just the ‘Sacrifice’ verses. The pair, who have been friends since they were teenagers, worked together to finish “Cold Heart.” “It inhabits its own space, much like that of Sir Elton.”

“Dua has an extraordinary voice,” he says. The producer said working with Dua Lipa’s vocals for “Cold Heart” was a special treat that helped inspire the trio, and which also helped the remix feel fresh. it’s always keeping the emotions ripe that’s the intention,” Littlemore (his brother Sam is the third member of Pnau) further explains of his producing process. “Often, I leave the song on loop, walk out of the room, and when I come back in, I instantly know if it’s ‘right’ if that emotion is driving the music deep into me…. “Weaving the vocals together, making both the melodies and lyrics gel as one was the most challenging part of making ‘Cold Heart,’” says Littlemore, who is also one half of Australian act Empire of the Sun, which scored an alt-rock/electronic crossover hit back in 2008 with “Walking on a Dream.” His bandmate, Nick Littlemore, says producing the deceptively simple disco-tinged medley of John jams was a challenge to get just right. “Streaming has changed the game, so we really wanted to have a big single, so I guess we tried harder to use the big Elton vocals this time around,” explains Mayes.

#COLD HEART SONG PLUS#

The trio decided that this time around, they would grab vocals from one of John’s best-known songs, “Sacrifice,” and re-imagine it mashed up with “Kiss the Bride,” plus “Rocket Man.” And a lot of the vocal tracks we had were huge iconic Elton John hits, and we’d sort of stayed away from them on the previous album intentionally, as we wanted to unearth a lot of lesser known Elton records and vocals then.” Then Elton was like, ‘Do you wanna do some more?’ and we had a lot of his vocals that we hadn’t really touched upon. 1 in the U.K., which was a great moment for us. … We did an album with Elton that came out in 2012 and it went No.

He first discovered us in Australia around 2007, and we even moved to London and then took up with his management company at the time. Says Mayes: “We’ve been working with Elton for about 15 years now.

#COLD HEART SONG UPDATE#

So how did Pnau, a long-established group down under with its own following among electronic music fans, get the opportunity to work with Elton John and update his classic songs “Rocket Man,” “Kiss the Bride” and “Sacrifice” via a remix (which also uses elements of another more obscure John tune) to turn it into an entirely new composition?

Cold heart song