Empire Of The Sun are back with a fantastic new album, Ice On The Dune.

“This album is a lot more scoped out than the last one,” explains Emperor Luke Steele.  “We had to go further out to get what we were looking for. We’ve been like big wave surfers, chasing the songs.”

A twelve song master class in crystalline, ultra-vivid cosmic pop, Ice On The Dune takes the conceptual vision of  BRIT nominated, ARIA sweeping, global smash Walking On A Dream and goes widescreen. In hyper-real HD. With surround sound.

“Music for us is about articulating the feelings you can’t put into words,” adds Lord Littlemore.  “In the same way different languages don’t fully translate, music can bridge that gap emotionally. We want to make music that is transcendental.”

Recorded in a “world tour of studios” in New York, Miami, Los Angeles and New Zealand Ice on the Dune is pop like you’ve never heard before. And pop as you’ve always known it. It’s music for the heart, the head, the feet and the soul (head-dress optional). The Emperor and the Lord elaborate:

Here the pair take us one a track by track through the album:

Scene 1 … LUX

Steele: “We’ve never written anything like this before. The string arrangement is by a classical composer called Henry Hay, who Nick’s been working with on Cirque de Soleil.”

Littlemore: “We would listen to it every day as we started work. Walking On A Dream was all about surrendering to the music. Ice On The Dune is more aspirational. We want to shoot out positivity like an arrow from our chest.”

Steele: “It sounds like the Empire ship has come back into the port. Or is heading into battle.”

Scene 2 … DNA

Steele: “One of the last tracks we recorded. On this one the effect we’re after in the listener is a warm glow. Like lying in front of a log fire with a labrador as a pillow.”

Littlemore: “A very laid-back energy, reminiscent of the first record. It captures that sense you get sometimes of being in the perfect environment. Where everything that happens is the right thing to happen…”

Scene 3 … ALIVE

Littlemore: “Sheer joy and exaltation. The line: ‘Loving every minute because you make me feel so alive” is almost like an old copywriting by-line, but if the delivery is right it can sum up so much. There’s an emotional intensity to it everyone can relate to. ”

Steele: “We recorded it between Santa Monica and Nick’s studio in New York. Musically, it’s a bit of a weird one. The tempo changes all the time. Sometimes the tempo is really quick, and at others it’s slower. It sucks you in. Like quicksand.”

Scene 4 … CONCERT PITCH

Littlemore: “This is from the very first sessions in New York. Luke left the studio one night and said he was going for dinner. He didn’t come back for two days. When he did, he was a changed man…”

Steele:  “It was a really heavy time. I was in the middle of touring the world and I was really stressed out. I went on a really big bender and ended waking up at eight o’clock at night thinking: ‘what is going on?’. I came up with the opening line: ‘I don’t want to be complicated…‘ and it all flowed from there..”

Scene 5 … ICE ON THE DUNE

Steele: “It’s the title track, and the name of the musical and the movie we’re working on with Bad Robot. It’s about how the Emperor’s head-dress is stolen by The King Of Shadows, bringing chaos to the world. The track kicked off in a hotel suite in LA, from a backing track idea sent over by Jono Sloan aka Donnie.”

Littlemore: “Musically, it took a lot of work. We push each other very hard in the studio. When the ideas are flowing there’s an electric feeling I can only compare to shamanism. This is a good example. There’s an energy created, formed through the combined belief of every person within the room.”

Scene 6 … AWAKENING

Littlemore: “We always try to make everything hyper-real and fantastical by using all everything at our disposal: synthesisers, made sounds, found sounds, session players. This is a great example of that. Unbridled energy.”

Steele: “It’s just a great tune. Another chapter in the story of The Emperor and The Prophet…”

Scene 7 … I’LL BE AROUND

Littlemore: “This is the heart of the album for me, along with ‘Alive’. The words reflect the emotional state I was in. I’d been away from my lady for two months and I really needed to send a message out to the universe and to her.”

Steele: ‘I love this track. It always had a great melody but we must have done about eight versions of it. There’s even a Pet Shop Boys kind of version somewhere. All the time Nick and I would look at each other during the sessions and say: ‘Does it get you here, in the heart?’ In the end, it had to be a ballad. ”

Scene 8 … OLD FLAVOURS

Steele: “Throughout the process everyone was telling us to put a vocal on this tune. But the minute you put a lyric on there, it becomes a song. The mood changes. It’s just a great dance jam, like something you’d hear on a Daft Punk record. 

Scene 9 … CELEBRATE

Steele: “This is another one which went through the ringer (laughs). We did over a hundred tracks for the record and ‘Celebrate’ kept coming back into the reckoning. It was like the guest who gets kicked out of the party, leaves for good and then you make friends again. It had to prove its worth.”

Littlemore: “It was like finding a map where you couldn’t read the symbols and so you don’t know how to follow it. But we figured it out in the end.”

Scene 10 … SURROUND SOUND

Steele: “We did this at the same time as ‘Old Flavours’ during the very first sessions at Downtown Music in New York. It hung around the party and no one ever really wanted it to leave.”

Littlemore: “…We’re always looking for that one line in a lyric which can capture a universal feeling. ‘There’s a sound that follows us around’. Everyone can relate to that.”

Scene 11 … DISARM

Steele: “We did this one in Hollywood right at the very end of the recording. It was going to be a b-side then everyone seemed to think we should put it on the record. It’s something different. You can hear the melody that’s in the middle eight on every song on the record!”

Littlemore: “A late night track. It’s got a real charm to it. A Jamaican, reggae feel. Luke’s an incredible singer. He’s got a great grain in his voice which means you can have a sharp, rhythmic vocal but it can still sound melodic and funky.”

Scene 12 … KEEP A WATCH

Steele: “Nick wrote the lyrics to this one. It’s kind of like the message after the journey. It’s the point where The Emperor goes: ‘I’ll keep a watch over you guys”. That sense that God is watching over all of us. ”

Littlemore: “The Harlem Gospel Choir are singing on it.  A torch song. I can see Freddie Mercury singing it under the spotight. Musically, it’s inspired by Pink Floyd and The Beatles – and it conveys an eternal message of hope. We live in uncertain times and the world needs someone to come along and say you should dare to dream. Anything is possible. Ultimately, we’re spreading a message of positivity to the world.”

Ice On The Dune is out now through EMI/Universal.