Mallrat Talks ‘World Building,’ North America Tour and New Music

When Mallrat returned with 2025’s Light Hit My Face Like A Straight Right, the project wasn’t so much a reinvention, but a creative revelation.

With Light Hit My Face (released via Nettwerk in North America, and via Dew Process / Universal Music Australia in Australasia), the Brisbane-raised, Melbourne-based artist built a new world, a universe. It’s a collection that staddles both the future and nostalgia, built with bricks that are both organic and electric.

On it, Mallrat (real name: Grace Shaw) showcases her vocals, which at times take an otherworldly turn with the help of AutoTune; her maturing songwriting; and features an array of collaborations, including contributions from Cub Sport’s Tim Nelson, Australian producer Styalz Fuego, and U.S. producer Buddy Ross. Shaw’s production on Light Hit My Face earned her producer of the year plaudits at the 2026 Queensland Music Awards, a badge she’s particularly proud to wear. Mallrat was also nominated for album of the year at the QMAs, and best solo artist and best pop release at the 2025 ARIA Awards.

“This was the first time that I was super-intentional with the world building with all of the visuals for the album, especially,” Shaw tells Billboard. “The worlds that I was building was a parallel universe, a southeast Queensland, where magic appears through strange little portals.” The album’s artwork features Shaw climbing on board a Hills Hoist clothesline, an Australian icon that’s right up there with Vegemite, koalas and the Lamington. In Mallrat’s world, it’s no ordinary Hills Hoist. This is a portal. “I imagined it as a conductor of magic,” she says with a laugh.

Mallrat presented some of that magic on opening night of Vivid Sydney 2026, with a set at Tumbalong Nights on Darling Harbour last Friday, May 22, where she fronted a three-piece lineup, which included a live drummer and a keyboardist who would switch it up with a guitar for the right number. “Hi Sydney, how’s everyone feeling tonight. I’m so happy you’re here,” Mallrat, wearing a white shirt and matching cans, told the audience after opening with album cuts “My Darling, My Angel” and “Pavement.”

It’s a more robust lineup to Mallrat’s arena tour of Australia earlier this year in support of Kylie Minogue, when she performed alongside a DJ.

Mallrat emerged as a fully-formed indie-pop artist in 2016 with the first of several EPs, Uninvited. Career streams across her catalogue, which include the timelessly charming “Groceries” and the cuter than a bug’s ear “Charlie,” which she performed for Vivid Sydney, are north of 500 million, reps say.

American audiences will get to enter Mallrat’s world later this year. U.S. and Canada live dates get underway June 13 at Seaport District NYC, and include a tour in support of Swedish artist Tove Lo. Those Tove Lo Estrus dates wrap up Oct. 1 in Mexico City, Shaw’s first visit to Mexico’s capital. “I’ve always wanted to go there,” she enthuses. “I’m so excited about that.” It’s her second visit to North America in just 12 months, following Mallrat’s opening spot of MARINA’s run last September and October.

Mallrat’s universe is expanding. The goal, she tells Billboard, is “making more albums. I’m working on maybe what could be two albums, or maybe it’ll just be one. As well as alongside my own music, tinkering away at writing and producing with other artists that I find really exciting. I’ll just have to cross my fingers that all that stuff comes out.”

It’s a too early to lock in the style and sound of Mallrat’s next project. “But I have been playing with a more electronic sample-based direction,” she explains, “and then I’ve been playing with a more live indie direction and then I’ve also been like experimenting with some kind of indie folk stuff. So, what I need to figure out now is where to concentrate my energy. Because it’s all fun.”

Tumbalong Nights is part of Vivid Sydney 2026, which runs to June 13. Vivid Sydney is presented by Destination NSW.