Australian folk duo Luluc unveil sixth album, 'Sweet Thief,' out today via Community Music

There’s a palpable tension that sits at the heart of Australian duo Luluc’s (Zoë Randell and Steve Hassett) sixth album Sweet Thief on which they question and examine the shiny surface of modernity alongside the exploitation and existential manipulation that has crept into almost every aspect of our lives.

The new album was pertinently and primarily shaped by two key decisions from Randell and Hassett: the first was to spend Christmas 2024 at the family home of their friend J Mascis, the second was to return to Australia soon after, on inauguration day, January 2025, and spend the following year far away from the country that they’ve come to call home over the past decade or so.

The first of those decisions would lead to the Dinosaur Jr. frontman’s appearance on Sweet Thief, where Mascis adds his playful, signature percussion. Recorded in his attic-studio on Christmas Day, his drumming is folded into the folk-like textures of Luluc’s signature sound–the beautiful vocal harmonies that characterise their kinship–to give the album a spirited backbone for Luluc to play to, and build from.

"There is a very large lyric in this one which I think is super cheeky,” says Hassett of today’s focus track, “Wanna Get Free.”

“J plays understated drums on this and we just jam it out. Stuart Bogie is on horn stacks. Really happy with this as a wry challenge to overt conflict culture and its protagonists. 'Dance' is a dimensional concept which is both liberating and spiritual.”

WATCH THE OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO FOR “WANNA GET FREE”

That second choice, to spend a full year out on the Australian coast, would give them the time, space, and opportunity to breathe fresh life into their work; to shape and re-shape the album into twenty-six minutes of beautiful new music where not a single note is wasted, that feels like a distinctive new chapter in their story that continues to blossom in bold new colors. With a couple of decades-worth of experience now behind them, a winding success story through major labels, notable collaborations as well as a deliberate move away from such things, that sense of space and detachment felt not only required but also supremely cherished.

Presented and written with sensitivity, there’s also a wryness that runs through these songs; a playful, occasionally buoyant edge that can twist the meaning of words and sentiments from light to dark and back again. The album takes its title from a line in a Shakespeare sonnet, presenting it as a metaphor for the world as we find it today; an ever-changing kaleidoscope of love and hate, beauty and bloodshed, underpinned by a constant grapple for our attention.

On July 22, to herald the release of Sweet Thief, Luluc will play a headlining show at Union Pool in Brooklyn. Tickets are available here.

LISTEN TO SWEET THIEF

TRACKLIST:

1. Honeyeater

2. Rewarding Melody

3. Dopamine Slot Machine

4. Wanna Get Free

5. No One Else’s Pen

6. Which Way Now

7. A Better Truth

8. Lullaby

9. River At Your Feet

10. Homesick in L.A.

ABOUT LULUC:

Luluc is the singing/songwriting of Zoë Randell and multi-instrumentalist Steve Hassett. Emerging from the Melbourne scene in the 2010’s, Luluc’s sparse folk-noir debut Dear Hamlyn drew many high profile international fans as they signed to the legendary Sub Pop Records for their follow up, 2014’s Passerby. Produced in their adopted home of Brooklyn, NY, Passerby made various ‘year-end’ lists and was NPR's #1 album.

The 2018 release, Sculptor (Sub Pop), was again broadly lauded by the international music press while they toured extensively in the USA, Canada, Australia, UK and Europe with The National, among others. Luluc's Dreamboat (2020) was described by The New Yorker as “crystalline and unflappable, with a strange beauty that verges on creepy—it's the kind of voice that, on a movie soundtrack, portends unspeakable doom.”

Luluc's latest album, Diamonds (2023), was described by All Music's Timothy Monger as "...one of their most complete statements to date. With her distinctive low voice and unhurried pace, Randell is a master at describing the underlooked details of life, bringing to them a richness and sense of wonder. Each album in the band's catalog is a gem and Diamonds, with its dream-like tone and bouquet of lived-in stories, is perhaps their brightest."