LIQUORICE

The cover of Liquorice, the third album from Australian indie pop
artist Hatchie, features a closely cropped portrait of Harriette
Pilbeam laughing, her smudged red lipstick suggesting the glorious
aftermath of a kiss. Captured during a spontaneous backyard photo
shoot using a dinky digital camera, the image encapsulates a
record that is rough around the edges and joyfully undone with
themes of longing, lust, and regret.
Pilbeam began writing Liquorice in earnest while living in Brisbane
over 2022-2023, and later at a home shared with Agius in
Melbourne, ultimately completing the demos in mid-2024. As a
musician who has previously worn her influences on her sleeve,
Pilbeam strove to write from scratch without any specific musical
influences in mind; allowing songs to breathe for weeks, rather than
rushing ideas. She found herself drawn to the melodic simplicity of
her early songs and embraced her musical insecurities: "I wanted to
see my limitations as strengths that inform my style."
After working with producers Jorge Elbrecht (Caroline Polachek,
Japanese Breakfast, Sky Ferreira) and Dan Nigro (Olivia Rodrigo,
Chappell Roan) on Giving the World Away, Pilbeam wanted to
complete Liquorice with a single collaborator, ideally a non-male
producer who also fronts their own musical project. In September
2024, Pilbeam and Agius returned to Los Angeles to work with
Melina Duterte, who records indie rock under the name Jay Som
and has production credits on an assortment of projects including
the GRAMMY-winning boygenius album the record.
"My last album ended up being really dark and introspective and
that is one part of me, but there was this whole other side that I felt
like I wasn't expressing," Pilbeam says. "I'm a hopeless romantic
and a very silly person, sometimes to a fault." Now 32 and married,
Pilbeam found that "eternal feelings" of yearning and heartache
quickly rushed back as she reflected on her experiences as a
younger woman. At the same time, she channeled her fondness for
tragic romance movies where the characters do not necessarily find
a happy ending together.
Liquorice is preoccupied with the finite forever. These songs capture
the overwhelming, exhilarating, and transforming side-effects of
infatuation, even if the entirety of the love story only lasts for one
magical night. Like the rich flavors of the twisty, titular
candy--sweet, salty, and bitter all in one bite-Liquorice validates
how longing and obsession are intertwined in the self-discovery of
young womanhood