It’s been ten years since Australian electronic duo PINES released their breakout track Fate — and in that time, they’ve quietly built a following with their signature blend of cinematic soundscapes and emotional energy.
Now, they’re celebrating the release of their SUN EP, a collection of bright, festival-ready tracks designed to capture the feeling of golden hour and connection. Ahead of their debut at Meow Wolf Denver on Tuesday, June 11, the duo chatted with us to reflect on their journey so far, the spark behind SUN, and why this tour feels like their most immersive chapter yet.
Get Your Tickets to PINES at Meow Wolf
10 years of PINES… how has your sound evolved from “Fate” to the new Sun EP?
PINES: It’s wild to think it’s been 10 years. When we made “Fate,” we were so new to making music — I think that might have only been our third release ever.
Looking back, we didn’t really know what we were doing, just trying to figure out how to produce a song from start to finish and make it sound decent. Since then, we’ve learned so much about music production, live show production and what excites us — we’ve always been drawn into creating music that feels emotional and magical.
Over the years we’ve explored and pushed ourselves, both with our first album Dreamcycle and follow-up Life As We Know It. Those albums allowed us to push ourselves, experiment, collaborate with vocalists and play with different moods. The overall goal has always been to expand the PINES sonic-universe and challenge ourselves to try new methods, new sounds etc.
With our latest EP ‘SUN’, it feels like we’ve come almost full circle. We wanted to capture that spark that first inspired us to make music — something positive, uplifting, and bright but armed with some knowledge and skills. The EP as a whole has been very much guided by the idea of playing these tracks at an outdoor summer festival and that really has been our North Star for this batch of music.
What inspired the SUN EP, and what’s your favorite track?
“Summer, sunshine, light and positivity has been very much the inspiration.”
PINES: “It’s always hard to pick a favorite, but “Pools” stands out. That track just came together so effortlessly — one of those rare moments where it felt like it wrote itself. Sometimes you slave over a song for days, tweaking every detail, and other times (not often enough!) something just clicks. We genuinely didn’t feel the need to change anything to the point it even caught us both by surprise… we were like “is it really done…?!”. It does feel like on that one we captured a little spark of something magic.”
Your remix of “Good Morning” is a favorite — how do you approach remixes?
PINES: Stoked that you enjoy that one — it was a big moment for us. We hadn’t done anything with major labels at the time, so getting that surprise email and opportunity was exciting but also a challenge. The deadline was super tight, but the track came together quickly.
Instead of thinking, “How do we remix this GroupLove track?” we flipped it and we asked ourselves, “What would a PINES song sound like if GroupLove were featured on it?” This has since been the way we’ve approached every remix we’ve tackled since.
We love doing remixes as you’re not starting with a blank canvas and can hone in on the things you love in the original to create something brand new.
Get Your Tickets to PINES at Meow Wolf
How have American audiences received your music compared to Australian fans?
PINES: The support from American audiences has been beyond incredible. We’re so grateful to everyone in the U.S. who’s listened, shared our music, come to shows, bought merch or just sent us a message. We spend so much time tinkering in a home studio, leading relatively normal day to day lives — to then fly across the world and play to these energetic, generous crowds is such a privilege.
The Chase The Sun tour is only our second proper tour in the U.S., and like last year, we’ll be very much savoring the experience, meeting as many fans as possible and treating each show as if it were our last. We’re an independent act, and touring internationally is a costly exercise, especially coming from downunder so we never take it for granted.
Australia, of course, is home and we love our country — but it’s a smaller market and for the type of music we make it presents different challenges. We’ve always had a global focus with our sound and we’re so fortunate to have this incredible base of fans overseas that keeps us inspired and reminds us why we do this.
What excites you about bringing your show to a venue like Meow Wolf?
PINES: We were absolutely stoked when we found out we were playing Meow Wolf. It’s been on our radar for a while — we’ve seen from afar some of our favorite artists play there, and even though we haven’t visited the venue yet, we’ve always wanted to experience the space. It’s a technically challenging setup, but that pushes us in a good way.
We’ve designed a show that’s immersive and we’ll be playing music from across our entire catalogue, with a few surprises along the way. It’s honestly the best show we’ve ever created and we feel like we’ve raised the bar compared to last year’s tour. We’ll also be debuting an unreleased song that’s incredibly close to our hearts – one that we actually laid the foundations for on tour last year whilst stuck in the hotel room on a rare rainy day in Los Angeles.
6. If you could create your own Meow Wolf-style room inspired by Sun, what would it look like?
With the SUN artwork/art direction, we connected with a Spanish visual artist, Blanca Viñas. She creates these amazing layered photography exposures — full of texture, light, vibrancy and emotion. Her work really captured the mood we were aiming for with the EP so I guess if we could build our own room, it would tie in the aesthetic and blend of her visual style and our sound — something, glowing, warm – a space that almost feels like stepping into a golden-hour dream: rich textures, flowing visuals, beams of light — something that hits you emotionally but also just feels good to be in.
