Music is much more than just art. It’s a neuroscientific tool that you can use to pocket memories, elevate moments and add magic to the mundane. Some elicit stronger bouts of nostalgia than others simply because of how they’re produced and written. But the process of music digging into our souls and helping us find ourselves or giving us some sense of comfort when needed is deeply personal and profound.
The best part? No one gets to choose what music tugs at your very being whether it’s a static attachment that sticks with you for life or a fleeting love affair, only popping up when you least expect it.
Much of the discourse around music’s role in forming and retrieving memories revolves around adolescence and early adulthood. Still, age isn’t a factor when discussing how music becomes part of who we are. Or how it can help us speak to ourselves in ways we don’t always consciously know-how.
The main value we get from art is sublimation. When something truly resonates with us, it speaks to us on a subconscious level. And we can’t often do that ourselves. I believe this is because society has filled our consciousness with so many shallow labels, over-pathologising human nature to a point where we avoid the important parts of ourselves simply because such deep introspection feels abnormal.
But speaking to those parts is important, so we can build a more authentic life and reconcile who we are with who we want to be. Therein lies the true value of music. And why it is inseparable from growing up.
I use Max Richter’s brilliant score for HBO’s The Leftovers to make travelling seem that much more profound, my lifelong love of hip hop to feel untouchable, and the spellbinding sounds of Tori Amos for a good ol’ nostalgic cry. When you become aware of music’s power to shift emotions and stimulate memories you start to see how impactful it can be on a deeper level.
There’s another band I’ve added to my eternal staple of coming-of-age songs – this year especially.
The band are Sydney trio RÜFÜS DU SOL; a musical project that I suspect almost everyone aged 18-40 can relate to, given their music has become the perfect soundtrack for people’s deeply personal moments, even those pushing middle age.
In November 2025, RÜFÜS DU SOL will return to Australia to perform some of their biggest shows to date. Arena shows, some of which have already sold out.
The popularity of EDM in Australia
This is no surprise. Aussies love their EDM, and its popularity has only been soaring recently. We all know how in-demand UK artist Fred Again… is.
Look elsewhere and you’ll find similar success stories to RÜFÜS DU SOL or Fred Again…; compelling DJs and producers from Australia who have launched hugely successful careers and play hotly anticipated shows worldwide each year. Fisher, Alison Wonderfland, Dom Dolla and Hayden James are four names that spring to mind. Look back a few years and you’ll surely remember how inescapable Flume was. Further back, you’ve got Cut Copy, The Presets, Flight Facilities and PNAU.
According to a recent IMS Business report, Australia is the third largest market for EDM worldwide. Data from SoundCloud and Pollstar deepen this story, showing an increasingly vital scene dominating Aussie music tastes.
EDM makes up a third of all streams on Soundcloud coming from Australia, which is 50 per cent higher than the global average of 25 per cent. Furthermore, 35 per cent of all uploads to streaming platforms in Australia were from EDM artists in 2024, up from 28 per cent in 2013.
In 2023, EDM artists from Australia were discovered by first-time listeners more than 2.7 billion times on Spotify, which indicates that these artists are being added to more and more playlists, reflecting both demand and quality.
The report also found that one in four Australian festivals is dedicated to electronic music. And while festivals that stray from this genre specific approach are struggling, EDM events like Harbourlife and Strawberry Fields are selling out with relative ease.
A sense of place
EDM artists from Australia’s east coast have been particularly interesting to watch over the past few years. There’s a throughline of spacy, contemplative sounds that almost always evoke summer on the harbour, as opposed to a dark rave cave buried in a nonspecific city.
That brighter, more texturally open sound is the perfect sheet for vocal-driven work. It has been for years, but RÜFÜS DU SOL took it to the next level with Tyrone Lindqvist’s breezy Scandi accent and dramatic, soulful delivery.
The band’s evocative sound has been threaded through sophisticated, synth-heavy production to deliver something wholly unique. It helps that the songwriting is great as well, taking the Drake approach in nailing deeply relatable scenarios flecked with guilt, love, rejection, self-sabotage and anxiety.
RÜFÜS DU SOL’s only real comparison, in this sense, is Fred Again…, although the latter favours field recordings and bouncy production to drive his message. I make this comparison because both give us fairly dark, depressing messages over bright, cutting-edge beats.
I like to think it’s giving us pain (the lyrics) and pleasure (the production) in equal measure, leaving it up to us to decide what to do with it and how we sketch ourselves into these stories.
And I’ve sketched some of the best and worst days of my life onto songs like “Underwater” and “Surrender.” I doubt I’m alone in making these songs part of who I am and my story. That much is obvious when seeing RÜFÜS DU SOL live.
Look around at a RÜFÜS DU SOL show and it appears that people aren’t just dancing to the music, they are reliving memories. There’s not as much dancing as you’d see at something like The Chemical Brothers or The Prodigy. People are mostly just softly swaying, eyes closed as if they are off somewhere far, far away from the dancefloor. Sure, drugs play a part, but I also think that the nostalgic quality of these songs has a lot to do with it.
I’ve seen both RÜFÜS DU SOL and Fred Again… live this year and, when thinking about what the crowd was like compared to other EDM gigs I’ve been to this year, it appears the above is somewhat true. I know that’s a strange thing to notice, but I also think that’s a beautiful way to look at EDM and is a reminder of how personal (and powerful) the experience of listening to music is.
So next time you’re watching RÜFÜS DU SOL live, consider that the people around you aren’t just moving to the beat, or whatever they’ve taken, but dancing to their own story. And I think that’s quite special to be part of.
Australia is leading the charge when it comes to new-wave EDM and it’s ability to evoke nostalgia more readily than other forms of dance music; it’s the reason that this offshoot has been steaming up the charts over the past few years. And there’s a classic quote about storytelling that applies here: no one cares about your story unless they can see themselves in it.
We care so deeply about bands like RÜFÜS DU SOL because they know how to create room for our stories. Songs like “Next to Me” and “Innerbloom” are so successful because they welcome us, whether it’s our happy moments, painful moments, or just ones we want to remember for a lifetime.
RÜFÜS DU SOL will bring their Inhale/Exhale tour to Australia at the end of 2025.
Dates below and tickets can be purchased via livenation.com.au.
Friday 7th November, 2025 – RAC Arena, Perth
Saturday 8th November, 2025 – RAC Arena, Perth
Tuesday 11th November, 2025 – AEC Arena, Perth
Thursday 13th November, 2025 – Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne
Friday 14th November, 2025 – Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne
Saturday 15th November, 2025 – Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne
Thursday 20th November, 2025 – Qudos Bank Arena, Sydney
Friday 21st November, 2025 – Qudos Bank Arena, Sydney
Saturday 22nd November, 2025 – Qudos Bank Arena, Sydney
Tuesday 25th November, 2025 – Brisbane Entertainment Centre, Brisbane
Wednesday 26th November, 2025 – Brisbane Entertainment Centre, Brisbane
This piece was created as part of The Music Writer’s Lab 2024 Commissioning Fund.
Headline photo taken by Waytao Shing at ACL Festival 2021. Remaining photos of RÜFÜS DU SOL in the article are by John Goodridge, from the Wildlands Festival 2024.
