Dope Lemon and being the protagonist of your own story: “There’s no boundaries as to where your imagination can take you”

Posted On April 2, 2025April 2, 2025

As the nights grow lighter and we feel the first optimistic hints of the weight of seasonal depression finally lifting, it’s suddenly much easier to look ahead towards the height of summer. Tropical paradises, glimmering coastlines, endless blazing sunshine—may not exactly be what the UK has in store for us, but Dope Lemon is certainly ready to take us there with his shimmering new effort, Golden Wolf.

Dope Lemon, the alias of Australian sonic chameleon Angus Stone, embarks on a fresh fifth solo outing with the album release slated for May 9th, reaching the glistening shores of synth-pop and slick, ethereal riffs and branching out into new, unfettered ground. Before that, he spoke to Far Out about how the album has helped form a new personal portrait of himself as a musician and what it means for his artistic future.

“Conceptually, it’s always an unknown when you step into each record—each song has its own landscape and an orbit, and it’s cool in that way because you never know where you’re going to end up,” Stone tells me over Zoom, as he prepares to release the album’s latest single ‘Sugarcat’, a twinkling and electronically-infused web contrasting mythical elusiveness and tangible reality.

He explains, “Each song has a different story to tell, and I think what’s beautiful about this art form is there’s no boundaries as to where your imagination can take you—it’s really nice hearing that people can go places with it.” That notion of ‘going places’ ebbs and flows through every inch of the record, across glittering seas to the expanse of unknown desert sands, making it the unmistakable soundtrack to the mystic summer days that stretch ahead.

But in certain respects, all of this sounds quite far-fetched, so what does it actually mean for Stone and the sun-soaked surroundings in his native Australia? “That’s the thing—your environment has everything and also nothing to do with your art at different times,” he muses. “Sometimes you’ll be at the darkest points in your life, in a place you don’t really want to be, and it’s aesthetically like everything’s sort of falling down around you, but you can still you can still create beauty within that.”

“Then, on the opposite end of the spectrum,” he considers, “you can be in the most magical land—you know, rainforest and everything’s just green and lush, and it’s very ethereal—and you’ll be creating something that just doesn’t feel right, and I think at the end of the day your environment is almost redundant.”

To listeners newly entering into the Dope Lemon universe on Golden Wolf, there’s no denying the sonic similarity to other psychedelic exports from down under, including the likes of Tame Impala. Stone doesn’t rebuke this comparison and instead seemingly embraces it as he reflects, “It’s about where you can go with yourself because, at the end of the day, that’s all you really have. And I think possibly when it comes to creators and artists in that format, it’s cool that you’re able to sort of disappear into these worlds.”

Nevertheless, it is clear that the world the album dives into is very much Stone’s own creation, reflecting a nonchalant indie ease seen in his previous efforts like 2023’s Kimbosabè and the 2022 standout hit ‘Rose Pink Cadillac’ from the album of the same name. They may be rooted in entirely different landscapes, but the genesis of the sound is steadfast throughout his back catalogue, giving each new record its own space to warp time and build an ambience.

This sense weaves its way smoothly through every inch of Golden Wolf, from the luxurious swagger of the already-released tune ‘Electric Green Lambo’ to the sparkling riffs and airy vocals of the title track, fulfilling all the markers of a classic indie banger while simultaneously pondering the existential topics like life, death, and reincarnation. “I guess it’s sort of explaining that feeling that we’re all eventually going to pass over, whether it’s to the next side, or, if you believe in that or not,” Stone says.

“The concept of it is what you’ll take with you, who will lead you there, what you’ll leave behind, and how you’ll grow in the next life.” Displaying its integrity at the heart of the record, he circles back to the song for a second time in our conversation, adding, “When we were recording that song, it was just one of those really beautiful moments where the sound was coming through the living room. I had that moment where time sort of stood still; the lyrics and the nuance of the story, what it was to be there in the room and make that piece of art at the time, was really memorable for me.”

“[‘Golden Wolf’] holds this sort of symbolic value as to what I wanted,” Stone explains. “I wanted to represent the record in a way more so as a feeling. I don’t know, I think you can sum up moments through looking back, and that for me…yeah, it was a really special one.”

From a sonic perspective, one of the record’s most interesting moments appears in its final track, ‘Dust of a Thousand Stars’. An instrumental incantation with only one lyric throughout its almost eight-minute span—“I’m the dust of a thousand burnt up stars”—it takes on an almost spiritual presence in closing out an album which has takes shot at shimmering heights but also lays Stone at his barest.

“Yeah, it’s cool like that,” Stone beams over compliments for the tune. “Sometimes, saying less is more, and I think that the track speaks for itself in that way. It was a jam. It was a jam of us, you know, having a few whiskeys and kicking out, bringing out the sitar and droning through this sort of this orbit. It was just a lot of this beautiful energy in the room, and it evolved into this really cool bass. We’re really proud of that to sort of bookend the tale of this next record.”

Ultimately, I ask Stone, with the process of Golden Wolf having painted a more personal portrait of him as a writer than ever before, what comes next? “The beauty of sticking with something that’s a labour of love, the reward in that is you’re constantly running your skill set, and you’re growing alongside your art form. I feel like it’s one of those things—you level up each time and you’re almost the protagonist in your own story. Your fans get to follow you along this journey of each record, and that represents this timeline of the way that you see the world. Introspectively, it’s such a cool thing.”

Between personal reflections, spiritual horizons, and sun-kissed sonics, the album has much to offer in defining the next chapter of Stone’s Dope Lemon journey. Whatever landscape inspires his next venture will have much to live up to because, like the Eagles’ famed ‘Hotel California’, once you’ve rocked onto the shores of Golden Wolf, you can never leave.

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