Liquorice sees Harriette Pilbeam return to the sounds and stories that shaped Hatchie, exploring romance, imagination and a more sustainable way of making music.

“I think with this record, I really kind of realized what a romantic I am, and when I look back on how much, and how deeply I feel things when it comes to romance and heartbreak, I think this is a real reflection of that.”

I recently sat down virtually with Harriette Pilbeam, the voice behind Hatchie, to discuss her new album Liquorice. Pilbeam reflected beautifully on the cinematic influences and romantic rhetoric that shaped the 11-track project, offering a peek into the creative decisions behind her latest work.

Liquorice marks one of Hatchie’s most intentional and carefully curated releases to date, while still embracing a sense of ease, instinct, and fluidity. Moving organically through shoegaze, indie, and dreampop, the album finds Pilbeam returning to themes of romance, longing, playfulness, and imagination- territory that feels closer to home for Pilbeam. We dove deeper into the thematic mountains she’s scaled to create such a masterful body of work that dances in fictional dreamings.

Australian native and lead singer of Hatchie, Harriette Pilbeam was born into a musically inclined family; parents pushing the use of instruments on her siblings, and singing three-part harmonies in car rides home with her mother. Pilbeam has always had a notch for music, specifically singing. After branching out from fleeting friend-made bands, the project Hatchie was born alongside her husband, and has been kicking now for eight years. Pilbeam expressed “I feel like I’ve found home”, with Hatchie, feeling like she's recording and writing only of things close to her identity and desires.

Liquorice, Hatchie’s third full length album, was recorded over the course of a year in Pilbeam’s home base of Melbourne, Australia. She and I spoke about the concepts of time, rest, intentionality, and writing out of an inner-reflective nature, all in the context of her newest release. A prominent point made in Pilbeam and I’s conversation was the importance of careful, authentic creation. Prior/during the recording process, Pilbeam took some time to tend to her relationships with friends, husband. She mentioned “‘Okay, if I'm going to continue doing this, I need to do it in a way that’s emotionally and psychologically sustainable for myself. I can't turn around and realize that I've put my entire life into this project, and the rest of my life has been put on pause.’” Pilbeam took the time to hone herself, in order to later hone her true sound. She came back to what she loved most about making music, and you can hear this purposeful execution laced within her dreamy sonics and lyricism written for poets and lovers alike. “I've been able to listen to the entire album and be so stoked with every single part of the process. And yeah, so in that sense, it feels like a homecoming to me, and it's my real comfort zone” Pilbeam remarks about the making of Liquorice.

Although the project takes Harriette to a place deeply embedded in her identity, she expressed that Liquorice dabbled in fictional storytellings, and anecdotes that reflect the most romantic parts of her, without being autobiographical. Hysterically cry-laughing at romantic films (even given a perfectly stable love life) drove Pilbeam to create what she did; a conglomeration of intimate stories that paint the psychological landscape of a lover. “Anemoia” tracks the longing for memories never lived, “Only One Laughing” traces the maniacal thought process behind “why am I the only one here??”, while “Anchor” stands as a beautiful synth contribution to love’s drowning qualities.

Feeding into the album's intentionality was the track sequencing. Pilbeam expressed “I’m always thinking about it like a sonic story…I do like the ebb and flows of the builds; the peaks and troughs.” Where track “Carousel” takes your ears in an orbit of sound, consciously mimicking the feelings of a fairground attraction, “Sage” picks up that cyclical nature and plummets you straight to the depths of desperation. Pilbeam remarked “All the extremities really, right?” And Liquorice really is that: The moments of mourning, pining, daydreaming, losing, and moving forward. Hatchie has captured moments that resonate so deeply with a romantic’s ear. I tasked Pilbeam with ruminating on what her past self would think of her newest project Liquorice and she told me this: “Great question, I think she’d be happy. There was a time when I set so many parameters and rules for myself, I think she’d be a little taken aback just by how I leaned into certain sounds, but I still think she’d be stoked. Yeah, yeah I think she would.”

After the creation of the 11-track playbook to dreamy intimacy, Pilbeam feels she has landed herself in a spot where she’s found her flow. “I’m really paying more attention to having a balance of Hatchie and the rest of my life. There was a time where my entire life was dedicated to Hatchie, because I believed that was the only way it would be successful. But then I kind of had to turn around, and redefine what ‘successful’ meant to me.” Liquorice stands today, as Harriette Pilbeam’s (as well as Hatchie’s) success, and rightfully so.