[Cover photo credit to Mischa Baka]

Australian duo Luluc, made up of Zoë Randell and Steve Hassett, has released new 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.”

Formed of ten new songs, Sweet Thief was sketched out in Brooklyn in the summer of 2024 in the studio the duo have spent the past decade building and making their own.

They have always worked on their own terms, and the songs are layered and sculpted over long periods of time. Zoë even retreats to secluded spaces when writing.

She explains:

That space is quiet and quite isolated, but it’s where I feel deeply connected to the people I love, and also to a much broader sense of shared experience that we’ve all got. To me, that’s the most important thing about the work.

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.”

The lead single “Rewarding Melody” is out now, and shows the album’s approach to prying apart the surface of reality and its underlying structures. Approached at face value, it seems to be a simple love song, but the delivery suggests something else at work.

Zoë says of the album’s overarching theme:

We’re constantly told that we have to be part of specific groups, that we’re part of movements, but life is actually an individual experience. What you do with your life is in your hands and no one else’s. Doing harm to others, trying to get one over on other people, is all based on delusions and false promises. Far more important is the individual relationship you have with your life.