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.