A life of beats and balance
People
There’s no such thing as a regular day in the life of Adelaide-based creative Adam Dormand. By day, he helps keep South Australia’s Catholic school sport programs running smoothly, by night he is one half of globally renowned electronic music duo Pines.
It may look quiet, but there’s a flurry of creative energy happening in the offices above Featherstone Place, a quiet side street just off Rundle Mall. There, Adam Dormand runs creative studio Avenue De Saxe in an office space shared with digital entrepreneurs.
In a. nutshell, Avenue De Saxe handles websites, photography, video, graphic design and branding. More than a decade ago, one of Adam’s first major clients was the Catholic School Sports Association.
In 2012, he fronted a room of Catholic sports coordinators and pitched a new website concept. The brief was practical: build something that worked. What began as a straightforward build is now the central digital hub for Catholic school sport in South Australia.
The site manages event calendars for carnivals and fixtures, key dates and venues for each sport, coordinator details so schools know who to contact, and online nomination forms that open and close on set dates.
“It’s a functional website that is really allowing them to manage their nominations,” Adam says. “A lot of our work is just day-to-day: making sure nomination forms are available and doing what they should.”
He smiles. “My daughter goes to St Thomas School [in Goodwood] so she will probably end up being logged through this website,” he says. “It’s a nice full-circle moment.”
Among many clients, the studio has supported an education start-up led by Professor Alice Dunlop, a lead learning consultant for the Catholic Education Office who also runs a sustainability consultancy – Little Earthies – developing online courses and lesson plans for teachers.
When he’s not at work, Adam can generally be found making music with electronic music act Pines. In a recent tour of the United States, Adam and bandmate James Kenneally played Mexico City and opened for Duke Dumont at South by Southwest. It sounds like a clash of worlds – school sports nominations and late-night dancefloors – but for the man of many talents – it’s simply life.
The duo has made music since 2015, after Adam and James met at a wedding and got talking about music production. Adam had dabbled in music for years and James had injured his knee playing footy and was looking for a new passion.
They booked an intensive music production course in Sydney, after which they’d written enough music to enter a remix competition – and won. They called their project Pines and began releasing music. Momentum built. They played South by Southwest in Austin, signed a major-label deal with Sony USA (via Palm Tree Records), and were booked for Electric Forest in Michigan – a bucket-list electronic festival – in June 2020.
Their first single with Sony landed in March 2020, with an album due in May. Then COVID-19 arrived.
“Covid killed us,” Adam says. “We’d just signed the deal, had a big festival booking, and suddenly everything stopped. Borders closed, and most of our listeners were in the US. We kept making music, but there wasn’t much point releasing when you couldn’t promote it.”
In 2023, they hit reset, returning to South by Southwest with more experience. They were a hit. This time, they were offered the closing slot at the Moody Theatre, opening for Duke Dumont at the festival’s flagship final showcase. From that performance came North American management, a proper US visa, and their first headline tour.
Some shows – like a 450-capacity room in Denver, which they sold out – surprised them. Others were more modest. “It gave us a benchmark,” Adam says. “You don’t really know where you stand until you actually go into a market and sell tickets.”
PINES on tour in Colorado last year.
They’re now letting demand rebuild before heading back. As a creative director, musician, partner and dad, Adam’s daily juggle is real.
Avenue De Saxe is deliberately small and nimble. The studio’s “sweet spot” is when a client needs photography, branding, design and web produced in one place.
“I’ll go out and take the photos or drone shots, someone’s back here working on layouts and maps with the right colours and fonts, someone else is editing video,” he says. “It all comes out of the same little office. It’s much easier than three different suppliers who never talk to each other.”
The work has changed rapidly in recent years, especially with the rise of AI and tighter web security. “
This year I’ve spent a lot of time on security settings and locking things down,” he says.
“It feels a bit like the digital world has given everyone nukes. AI tools let people push big changes without really knowing what they’re doing.”
One client recently tried to redesign their own site using AI and accidentally took the whole thing offline. Adam had to untangle the damage. To stay sane, he keeps music and client work separate.
“I don’t do music as part of the day job,” he says. “When I make music, it’s for me or for Pines, not because a client wants a three-minute track.”
Most of that magic happens late at night.
“You get into that flow state and the time just disappears. Suddenly it’s four in the morning.”
Pines is currently preparing a new six-track EP, the second half of a larger body of work.
“These tracks are super inspired by when we first started making music. They are the sounds we dreamed about but didn’t know how to do yet.
“It’s all about sun and happiness – what the world needs right now.”
The release schedule is simple: a single in May, another in June, and the full EP in July.
Good music, he believes, is ageless. So too, is great design.
instagram.com/pines_music
