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Mallrat was poised for pop domination. Then tragedy struck

A month after the singer-songwriter finished her second album, her younger sister died. The grief left her ‘brain like an empty cave’ – but a year on, she’s rediscovering the magic of music

Her second album, Light Hit My Face Like a Straight Right, out on 14 February, was completed a month before the death of her sister, but the lyrics frequently call out to a missing other, an angel who “could show up right now” and make Shaw so grateful. It’s now been 10 years since Shaw first started uploading music to SoundCloud as a teenager, songs she would now rather forget: “If you make me listen to those, it’s like medieval torture.” In the intervening decade she has collaborated with professional shit-stirrer Azealia Banks (“we haven’t talked in a little while, but I do love her”) and the Chainsmokers (“that felt so random and so off brand. In her lyrics, light is the soft glow of love, the bright rays emitted by someone wonderful, or, per the kickboxing reference of the album title, a clarifying shock that smacks her in the face.

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