Australian indie-pop experimentalist Mallrat’s list of influences has always been an intriguing picture – she’s often named acts as diverse as Grimes, Courtney Barnett and Skrillex as some of her biggest inspirations – and it only continues on her latest project. The follow-up to her first studio album, 2022’s Butterfly Blue, Mallrat mentions that she was listening to a lot of SOPHIE, choral music and “old country songs from the ‘60s and ‘70s.” It doesn’t sound like it makes sense on the surface, but upon listening, it all clicks together.

Loosely tied together with a thematic throughline of rays of light acting like a sign or divine intervention, guiding people where they need to go or illuminating a potential romantic connection, Mallrat applies her tender and often creatively AutoTuned vocals to a series of wispy, slower-paced and often adorably lovesick tracks. Backed up by walls of harmonies and bright, heavenly synths that mirror that light breaking through, it does sound like a choir of country storytellers brought into the modern era and placed over a deconstructed dance beat, a la ODESZA or Fred again..

Retaining her pop catchiness and combining it with surprises like drum n’ bass beats, a great sample from Finnish a cappella group Rajaton, and even a touching final track tributing her late sister, Mallrat’s output is starting to become as wide-reaching as the spectrum of light.