A soft insistence informs the acoustic guitar of ‘Honeyeater’, the brief track opening Luluc’s sixth long player, Sweet Thief. Much like the music of Zoë Randell and Steve Hassett, the song doesn’t attack. It creeps up on you, little by little, weaving its way through your skin and into your soul. Over the following nine songs, they softly astound one’s sensibilities.
Produced by the duo, the album hits differently because they controlled the entire recording process. The Australian twosome, having spent more than 10 years stateside, spent a year in Australia, leaving the day Donald Trump was inaugurated as the 47th president. The change in perspective enabled them to reenergize and reexamine their priorities, coming back to create an album largely devoid of outside forces. As Hassett explains, “I think this is really the first record we’ve made where it’s about us and us only, where there are no competing voices.”
The opening notes of ‘Rewarding Melody’ make it clear this record goes in its own direction. With drumming from J Mascis, one might expect something loud and raunchy, yet what is revealed is a light, airy confection filled with distant horns. Lush while being instrumentally sparse, the song has all the same qualities as their music, being unique and lived in simultaneously. “Maybe somehow reminiscent/ Fresh as morning/ Old as the night/ That you may come back/ Whenever you might.” Universal yet specific to their own situation.
The writing of Randell and Hassett, combined with an intriguing string arrangement create a framework for a relationship where the things that matter are saved, while those that don’t are jettisoned on ‘No One Else’s Pen’. “Tell me all the ways to look forward/ Don’t want to get strung out on the past/What’s worthy of memory and remembrance/ Leave the rest in the vanishing dust.” What remains is all that matters, the rest never did.
Songs like ‘Which Way Now’ and ‘Honeyeater’ are over almost before they start, yet their brief appearances linger in the memory, cleansing the palette for what comes next. Even in an era of instant gratification an album that clocks in at just over 26 minutes seems unduly short. Yet the quality of these songs makes up for their brevity. ‘Lullaby’ has the sort of glorious string arrangement that makes it a pleasure to enter dreamland.
“Terrifying and beautiful” is an apt description for ‘Homesick in LA’. Musically it’s the busiest song in this collection. Clearly laying out the plight of an ex-pat, it reveals the longing and discomfort existing in heart of someone longing for a home too far away. Muddled and unrelenting, it attacks the soul. A cry in the darkness impossible to ignore, it leaves a lasting impression.
Zoë Randell and Steve Hassett’s Sweet Thief exists not in a vacuum, but in a world where our values are under attack. if there is a goal it is to hew towards those things that matter while letting go of the rest. To that end it is a collection of admirable value at a time when it is mostly richly needed.