There are songs that tell you what happened, and then there are songs that feel like you are walking through the experience alongside the artist. Lucienne’s latest release, “Rebirth,” belongs to the latter. It is deeply personal, introspective, and wonderfully strange in the best possible way, taking listeners into the darker corners of memory before gradually finding something brighter underneath.
Based in Eora/Sydney, Lucienne has been building a musical world where classic soul, folk storytelling, alternative rock and cinematic pop can all exist together. She describes the sound herself as “mystic sparkle-soul” mixed with plenty of real-world grit, and “Rebirth” gives that description plenty of room to breathe.
The song grew from a recurring dream Lucienne was experiencing while writing it. Waking repeatedly with a sense of dread led her to look more closely at the shame she had been carrying from parts of her past. Instead of allowing those feelings to define her, she began approaching them through forgiveness and self-love.
That is where the real power of “Rebirth” lies. This is not simply a song about leaving the past behind. It is about changing the way you look at what you have survived.
At the centre of the song is the Sanskrit mantra “Om mani padme hum,” something Lucienne remembers hearing her mother sing during her childhood. Growing up around bhajans, or Indian devotional music, gave the mantra a personal significance long before it found its way into her songwriting.
Its association with the jewel in the lotus becomes an important part of “Rebirth.” The lotus grows through mud, yet the idea is that something precious remains within it. For Lucienne, that became a powerful way of thinking about shame, innocence, and the parts of ourselves we might wrongly believe have been permanently damaged by difficult experiences.
What makes the idea even more interesting is that Lucienne’s relationship with the mantra has evolved. Rather than thinking of transformation as simply removing darkness, she has come to see it as absorbing and processing those experiences, allowing them to become part of a fuller version of herself.
That makes “Rebirth” feel less like a clean escape and more like an honest reconstruction.
The song also sits within a bigger musical journey for Lucienne. “The Same Death” represented the moment she permitted herself to use her voice again, while “High Up in the Clouds” captured the rush of that renewed joy alongside the cracks she had not yet fully explored. “Rebirth” takes that journey somewhere much deeper, moving from the feeling of flying high to the experience of falling, returning to the soil and finding a way back up.
It is a striking progression, and one that gives the release a sense of emotional continuity without requiring the songs to sound alike.
Lucienne’s visual approach to “Rebirth” expands that story even further. Shot on the regenerative farmland of Birkenburn along the Great Dividing Range in rural NSW, the video turns the recurring dream that inspired the song into a surreal visual journey. Acclaimed contemporary dancer Indiana Gordon stars in the clip, while Lucienne directs, with Maximilian Pinnegar handling cinematography and Archie Gordon taking care of editing and colour grading.
The concept follows a movement through fear and darkness toward a deeper understanding of what lies underneath. It is dreamlike, raw and deliberately abstract, reflecting the emotions that surrounded the song’s creation.
There is something especially compelling about Lucienne taking control of that visual world herself. She wanted the clip to feel transcendent and to capture the strange emotional logic of a dream, and the production itself became part of the experience. From working with friends who trusted her artistic vision to filming in a freezing forest in the middle of the night, the process sounds just as intense and personal as the song itself.
That vulnerability is becoming an important part of Lucienne’s artistic identity. Her recent performance supporting Crowded House and Thelma Plum on Bondi Beach, armed with little more than her guitar and soaring vocals, gave her a powerful reminder of just how far she had come. It was only her second solo show, and she had received the opportunity just seven days beforehand. What could easily have been an overwhelming moment instead became one of immense joy, gratitude, and confidence.
That confidence matters when listening to “Rebirth.” There is a sense that Lucienne is no longer trying to outrun the difficult parts of her story. She is learning how to transform them.
Her influences range from Melanie Safka, Janis Joplin and Jeff Buckley to Tina Turner, David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Alanis Morissette, Anton Newcombe, George Clinton and Brian Ferry, giving some indication of the wide musical territory behind her work. Yet “Rebirth” feels less interested in showing off those influences than in building a world that belongs to Lucienne.
And that world is becoming increasingly distinctive.
“Rebirth” is ultimately a song about discovering that the things you once considered stains on your story do not have to remain there forever. It is about looking beneath shame, finding the person who was always there, and allowing that person to emerge with greater freedom.
There is darkness here, but darkness is not the destination. “Rebirth” digs into it, sits with it, and then asks what might grow from it.
Lucienne transforms fear, memory and buried shame into a deeply personal statement of renewal with ‘Rebirth’
