ARIA Platinum singer, songwriter, and producer Mallrat, today unveils her new artistic statement in Light hit my face like a straight right, out now via Dew Process / Universal Music Australia. Tomorrow Mallrat kicks off a stream of arena tour dates supporting Kylie Minogue, in the lead up to her own headline Australian album tour this April. LISTEN TO LP HERE + BUY TICKETS HERE.

Light hit my face like a straight right explores the intangible and mysterious allure of human connection, held together by curious investigations. With an ounce of influence from her time growing up in Brisbane, Mallrat consistently seeks out (real or imaginary) magic in the otherwise ugly and everyday, as a means to understand the people and world around her. Light hit my face like a straight right is indebted to that magical realism Grace Shaw is uniquely able to canvas from Australian suburbia, translating tropes such as Hills Hoists, boxing, and excavator trucks into deeply spiritual symbols ascribed with all new values.

In Shaw’s vision of the world, light is more than photons and electromagnetic radiation hitting the eye — it’s a moment of divine intervention. “I love the idea you can let your fate be decided by rays of light,” she shares. A street lamp lighting a path on rain-soaked pavement, or sunshine hitting your face through an open window; or, more metaphysically, the imperceptible glow radiating from a person you were destined to meet. “There’s something holy about those moments, you know, like the angelic choir in cartoons or whatever,” Mallrat says. “It’s the unexpectedness of it, the suddenness.”

Formed in the wake of her acclaimed debut Butterfly Blue in 2022, and penned with a band of new and familiar collaborators including Chrome Sparks, Alice Ivy, Buddy Ross, Kito, APOB and others, to form an all new vessel of self described ‘dance music that has heart and potent magic’. Innovating Mallrat’s sound from dream pop into new terrains of hazy electronica – all still with a shoegaze moment in ‘The Worst Thing I Would Ever Do’ – sees a student of Charli and Addison craft spells as varied in influence as Fontaines D.C. and Two Shell; an adventurous sampler with nods to rap and indie throughout.

A deft straddle of light and dark, the picturesque and acerbic, manifests to all new summits of artistic intent on Light hit my face like a straight right. The sweet balladry of ‘Something For Somebody’ hides the reality of what it takes to get over someone – “I love disguising disturbed stories and messages in really sweet melodies and I think I did that in a really clever way here.” – to ‘Virtue’s display of her enduring fascination with traditional Irish music side by side with trancey, Y2K harpsichord. “When I listen to this song,” Mallrat shares, “I imagine dozens of little fairies possessing somebody and it’s unclear whether the fairies are good or evil. Also I love that Casey MQ and I managed to create a dusty, garagey break beat in the 3/4 time signature for this song.”

‘Defibrillator’ recounts an attempt to pick up the pieces that pushes production from Lonelyspeck to its limits. “I wasn’t sure that I wanted to put it on the album because it felt more emo than I usually allow myself to be. Styalz and I sometimes talk about pushing interesting moments in a song to the point of being almost uncomfortable for the listener, and that’s a reason why the final chorus is a cappella for as long as it is.”

‘Hideaway’, created with Japanese Wallpaper and Styalz Fuego, basks in arpeggios and heart-racing garage to clash with Mallrat’s most sincere candour; a desire to protect the euphoric bubble of a crush, “I’ll be your lucky charm just let me hang around your neck” she sings. Elsewhere, you find an endless suite of self-referential music, with interludes and tracks that call back to previous songs and her own sung melodies; pay close attention throughout for the easter eggs in ‘My Darling, My Angel’, ‘The Light Streams in and Hits my Face’ and ‘Love Songs/Heart Strings’ to the samples mined throughout.

The result is a showcase of Mallrat’s clever, studied production and intuitive songwriting that highlights her impeccable instinct. Primed with earlier singles ‘Pavement’, ‘Horses‘, ‘Ray of Light‘ and ‘Hocus Pocus‘, the record’s sum of expressive breakbeat and intimate dance music isn’t abstract or tied to didactic stories, but instead, presented as its own inherent being – the music Mallrat loves making most captures a feeling or time that words alone don’t do justice. A bold step into the art of world-building, peek into her prolific and growing ear on Light hit my face like a straight right, a triumph of gut, faith and timeless pop backed by her reputation of enduring global resonance.