Acclaimed Eora/Sydney-based multidisciplinary artist Annie Hamilton (she/her) shares her simmering new single ‘chainmail’ on Wednesday October 21 - the first taste of her as-yet-unannounced third album, slated for release early 2027 (independent, distribution via GYRO). Stepping into a new era, here Hamilton turns her introspective, meandering approach outward, signalling a fresh, pop-forward and extroverted ethos for the musician, producer, visual artist and fashion designer. 

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Written on a solo writing trip in Paris and co-produced by Annie Hamilton and  Alice Ivy (Ecca Vandal, Mallrat, Sycco, Thelma Plum, Holly Hebe, Teen Jesus & The Jean Teasers), ‘chainmail’ is an incandescent trip down the spiral staircase, exploring the gravitational pull of toxic love. It begs to be haunted, to indulge the fantasy, to reject logic. 

From the first beat of the off-kilter pulse you're pulled deep into a fierce and vivid dream-pop world, where pulsating synths blend with dark, crystallised guitars and Hamilton's uniquely raw vocal tone, setting a scene that is both ethereal and fierce, before exploding into a defiant chorus - "chainmail got nothing on my skin". Meandering through bold twists and turns and sparkling like ground-up diamonds, the track puts Hamilton's distinct songwriting on full display and is a testament to the free-flowing creative relationship between Hamilton and Ivy. 

The dark shimmer of ‘chainmail’ feels like a natural continuation of the adventurous heart of Hamilton’s celebrated sophomore album stop and smell the lightning (2024); pushing her previously introverted approach into a more immediate, confrontational space - one that not only addresses the toxic relationship but admits an addiction to it (“baby, you haunt me, but I love it”). On the piercing honesty of her lyricism, Hamilton says "I don’t really see the point in censoring or filtering myself, if anything, I think the more feral I can go the more likely it will find the people who need to hear it. With the current onslaught of AI slop I think it’s more important than ever to allow ourselves and our art to be deeply and embarrassingly human."

Hamilton's self-described 'sunshine gothic' world-building is out in full force with chainmail; she describes the track as "midnight wind through the wings of a flock of bats... it sounds like lava". The track is accompanied by a music video by Hamilton and longtime collaborator Rob Agostino, featuring a handmade cave built in Hamilton's garage, a flock of bats and an alter-ego shadow self armed with a sparkling bow and arrow. In the video, Hamilton wears a bespoke custom design she created from chains, a lock of her own hair and the dress she made for her talk music video, effortlessly interweaving her multidisciplinary creative practice into its current incarnation. 

Of the single, Annie Hamilton says “This song came flowing in one day during a solo writing trip in Paris, where I locked myself in an apartment, turned off my phone, tapped out of reality and wrote an album. I set up a DIY recording studio on the kitchen table with a couple of synths, a couple of guitars and a mic. I started with the opening pulsating synth line and the rest of the song fell out of me intuitively, without overthinking, like a stream of consciousness. Once I got home, I went down to Naarm/Melbourne to work on it with Alice Ivy in her beautiful studio by the river. I told her that it should feel like a slow descent down a sandstone spiral staircase into an underground goblin rave. From that point, every time we worked on it, we ended up dancing around the studio like goblins. We developed a goblin language to communicate. Now every time we call each other we speak goblin for the first 30 or so seconds of every conversation. It's really silly but we can't stop. That's the effect this song has on people. Beware."