Pnau (stylised in all caps) are an Australian dance music trio originating from Sydney. The trio, a duo before 2016, consists of the musicians Nick Littlemore (vocals, production), Peter Mayes (guitar, production) and Sam Littlemore (production), with the latter joining in 2016. Pnau first gained recognition through their 1999 debut album Sambanova, which later won an ARIA Music Awards for Best Dance Release. Their third album, Pnau (2007), brought them further critical acclaim and success. Pnau is also recognised for a heavily publicised apprenticeship under the musician Elton John, who signed the duo after listening to the Pnau album. Several of Pnau's later projects have had John's involvement, such as the 2011 album Soft Universe and an album of Pnau recreations of Elton John's hits called Good Morning to the Night, released in 2012.

Apart from being a member of Pnau, Nick Littlemore also appears as one half of the project Empire of the Sun. In November 2016, the new line-up released "Chameleon", the first single from their album Changa.

Pnau formed in Sydney, New South Wales by Littlemore and Mayes. The two met at secondary school at the age of 12 and began performing together in the mid-1990s, initially playing acid, house music, and trance music. Littlemore recalled meeting Mayes when he was 10; "He tripped me over. We hated each other for a couple years and then we started sneaking out and going to raves when we were about 13 and we formed a bond over intense music." Littlemore and Mayes created their first album when they were in their mid-teens. "It was called Fractal Geometric Spaces Made of Light," Littlemore remembers, "Which is probably why it was never picked up."

The duo's first commercially available tracks were a pair of nine-minute tracks, "Frisk" and "Anthropophagi", that led off doof@cybersonic.aust.com – an underground acid trance compilation album distributed by cult electronic label Creative Vibes in 1996. Pnau would then feature on another Creative Vibes project, 1998's compilation record Evolutionary Vibes III: The Evolution Will Not Be Televised, with the song "Discone".

In July 1999, Pnau released their debut album Sambanova under the independent label Peking Duck. It was recorded in a bedroom studio and they state they only expected it to sell "a few thousand copies". The album was pulled from record stores for using uncleared samples, but re-released in June 2000 and peaked inside the ARIA top 40. In October 2000, at the ARIA Music Awards of 2000, the album won Best Dance Release. In a 2003 interview with The Age, Mayes said that they had no understanding of sample clearances due to their naïveté in the music business. Mayes claimed that the album's recall did seriously affect their commercial sales. Littlemore later contested, "They screwed us over for $300,000. Warners didn't; another third party did. But that happens. We're still here, we're still doing it."

Pnau went on to make many live appearances at music festivals like Big Day Out in 2001 and Homebake in 2002. During this time, they garnered a reputation for their lively performances.

In October 2003, Pnau released their second studio album, Again. The album was not a commercial success and Littlemore was later quoted as Again being "the worst record I've ever done". Littlemore has since retracted the statement. When asked if he still considered Again to be his worst record, Littlemore responded, "Well next to Soft Universe. They're sort of on par." Littlemore further explained that his opinions are influenced by the albums' commercial success, which is an easy headspace for him to get into since "everyone loves Empire of the Sun, it's sold 1.1 million records." Despite the seemingly unfavourable album response, several tracks received considerable acclaim - the most noteworthy being "We Love the Fresh Kills" which was a significantly popular single for the duo at the time. However, because of Again's lackluster success the pair parted ways for some time to work with other artists such as Robbie Williams, Van She, and Lost Valentinos.

In 2007, the duo reunited and wrote over two-hundred songs together and started to lay down an entire album with Littlemore's brother Sam as producer. They sent a work-in-progress track to long-time friend and collaborator Luke Steele, who sent back the track with his own vocals. After receiving the track, the Littlemore brothers and Mayes agreed to scrap almost everything they had laid down to focus on a more vocally centred album. The track became known as "With You Forever" and the finalised album was released under the self-titled name Pnau. The album not only featured vocal work from Steele and Littlemore, but also had many guest appearances such as Ladyhawke, Feadz, Nik Yannika from Lost Valentinos and Michael DeFrancesco from Van She. The album was released to high critical acclaim and gained unexpected favorable attention from John, declaring it to be the greatest record he'd heard in ten years.