Most people assume a good album takes years. Long stretches in the studio, songs written and rewritten, a release date that keeps slipping.

Dan Sultan wrote and recorded his new one in under three weeks.

Little Miracles came out on Friday 23 October through Mushroom Music, and Sultan is calling it his greatest work to date. He co-wrote and produced it in London with Guy Chambers, the British songwriter behind a long list of Robbie Williams hits who has also worked with Kylie Minogue and Tina Turner. It was mastered at Abbey Road. Sultan has described his partnership with Chambers as a watershed moment in his life, and he’s not someone who throws words like that around.

The record almost didn’t happen

After his self-titled 2023 album, a very personal one, Sultan genuinely wondered whether he’d write another. Meeting Chambers is what shifted that. The album’s title comes from that turnaround, and you can hear it in the songs, which keep coming back to family, home and his connection to Country.

The singles gave fans a decent preview. “Needing Love” came out in June, around the time he flew to London to perform in Chambers’ Intimate Voices concert series. “Forgiveness” followed in July, a song about self-reflection and starting fresh. September’s “There’s a River” had been sitting unfinished since 2022 until he took it into the studio with Chambers.

Release day had a strange twist, too. Shell Reddy Express played the album in full across its stores on 23 October. Honestly? Not where anyone expected to hear a new Dan Sultan record first.

From Fitzroy pubs to the ARIA stage

Sultan was born in Melbourne in 1983 and grew up in Fitzroy. He’s an Arrernte and Gurindji man who picked up a guitar at four and was singing in local pubs as a teenager. In 2000 he met guitarist Scott Wilson at a karaoke night in a Williamstown pub, of all places, and the pair started writing songs together. That partnership led to his 2006 debut, Homemade Biscuits.

What came after is a fairly serious run:

• Best Male Artist and Best Blues & Roots Album at the 2010 ARIAs for Get Out While You Can
• Blackbird reaching number four in 2014 and winning Best Rock Album
• An ARIA for his children’s album Nali & Friends in 2019
• Best Adult Contemporary Album for his 2023 self-titled record

His portrait is even part of the National Portrait Gallery collection. He’s opened for Bruce Springsteen in Melbourne, acted in Bran Nue Dae alongside Geoffrey Rush and Jessica Mauboy, and sung on “Gadigal Land” with Midnight Oil and “January 26” with A.B. Original. Earlier this year he released a live album recorded at the Sydney Opera House and played Dreamtime at the ‘G to more than 90,000 people.

Why this one feels different

Sultan has had some rough years, and he’s never really hidden that. Which is probably why an album built on fresh starts and forgiveness lands the way it does. It sounds like someone who’s worked out what he wants to say and finally found the right person to say it with.

He’s been out playing launch shows in Archies Creek, Ballarat and Geelong, plus a hometown night at the Evelyn Hotel in Fitzroy. One of the coloured vinyl pressings had already sold out before release, which tells you something about how long people have been waiting.