The duo first met in 2000 at the suggestion of Littlemore’s label. He was immediately intrigued by the enigmatic Steele’s quirkiness.

“We met in Darlinghurst, Sydney,” Littlemore explained. “Luke was quite striking. He was carrying a suitcase, and I wasn’t sure exactly what was in it. Every time I saw him from then on, he would have the suitcase, but he’d have a different object inside of it, which was thrilling. The next day, we went straight up to my folks’ place where I had a studio and wrote a song.”

The friendship resulted in Steele doing vocals on Pnau’s single “With You Forever,” but any further collaboration got put on hold while The Sleepy Jackson released two albums (2003’s Lovers and 2006’s Personality: One Was A Spider, One Was A Bird) and Pnau evolved into one of the biggest names on the exploding Aussie dance scene, working with acts like The Killers. The pair knew they were destined to work together though.

“As an artist, you look for a connection, and there aren’t really that many musicians that you have a lightning connection with” Littlemore said. “It was kind of one in a million for us to meet, and strike. The really great duos – the Steely Dans, the Daft Punks, Air – there’s only a few of them around.”

In 2007, working around their respective schedules, they hit the studio for intense recording sessions with Pnau’s other member, Peter Mayes, assuming a recording/engineering role. Steel said the sometimes harried working conditions actually helped.

“Most of the record was done when I’d be in town for a day, so we’d have to finish a whole song in a night,” he explained. “Then, two months later, I’m back and we’d do it again. So it was spontaneous writing, which was good. A lot of the Sleepy [Jackson] stuff was quite laboured. This was the first record where I could have a bit of a break. It all just happened.”

The resulting work, Walking On A Dream, is something you don’t see much in these days of downloads and mp3s – a concept album.

“About a quarter of the way into recording, we actually wrote a treatment for a film that we’ll make for the album,” Littlemore said. “We wrote the whole script, so then we just wrote songs to fit into places within the script. It’s a journey of discovery, like a road movie, but one you’re not seeing on the road.”

To complete their vision for the project, the duo has begun traveling to exotic locations to film clips that will be used as a backdrop for their live extravaganza, scheduled to kick off sometime this year.

The video for the title track was shot in Shanghai and nearly resulted in the pair getting arrested.

“It was pretty technicolor,” Steele said. “It was done pretty renegade style, it’s illegal to film there. We had to do the make-up in the car.”

It’s a safe bet the exotic costumes Steele and Littlemore sport in the video didn’t help them blend in, as you can see.

The second clip, for the track “We Are The People,” was shot in much safer, but still exotic, locations – the Mexican towns of Garcia, Xilitia and in the Icamole Desert.

Obviously, Steele and Littlemore are on a serious campaign to make killer videos, with future plans to shoot clips in places like Iceland and Las Vegas.

Both the album and its first single, the title track, have already climbed into the Top 10 on the Aussie charts. The “Walking On A Dream” video has also racked up 5.5 million hits on the band’s MySpace page.

The British press has been similarly impressed with NME saying, “World domination quite literally awaits” and the Guardian predicting “Ladies and gentleman we already have a contender for 2009 album of the year.”

Walking On A Dream is due for release in the U.S. April 21 on Astralwerks Records.

For behind the scenes footage of Empire Of The Sun’s video shoots and new clips visit the band’s official YouTube channel here.