Fearless. That was the word that kept coming up when Australian singer/songwriter Kate Miller-Heidke was dreaming up her sophomore record (and US debut) Curiouser. Fun was another one. The fact that she dared to dream either while her 2007 Australian debut Little Eve was still ringing loud and clear suggests a couple more F-words. Forward. And Fast.

She had a tough act to follow. After a trilogy of EPs in her home country from ’04 to ’06 – “Telegram”, “Comikaze” and “Circular Breathing” – Little Eve burst onto the scene to land in the upper reaches of the ARIA charts and earned the singer a host of accolades. The album went Gold and clocked up four ARIA nominations.

“We had no songs,” she says. “What we had was a huge burst of inspiration. We went into this album with a vision. We mapped out how we wanted it to sound; the aesthetic, the spirit of it. Experimental, hooky, unashamedly pop . . . we wanted to exploit everything that’s unique about my music.”

“We” includes Kate’s partner in life and music, hus