For a global pop star, Ben Lee doesn't feel the need to conform. After the success of his 2005 smash Catch My Disease, it would have been acceptable for Lee to churn out pop-by-numbers hits as so many have done before him. Instead, his career has crisscrossed the musical landscape via his latest two records, 2011's concept album Deeper Into Dream and last year's South American hallucinogen-inspired Ayahuasca: Welcome To The Work. Critically accepted yet commercially lukewarm, Lee's 2014 effort will see him come full circle.

“I thought I was about to make my most experimental album yet,” he says from his adopted home of Los Angeles of his upcoming record, Love Is The Great Rebellion. “I've been volunteering as a hospice worker this year and working with the dying. I've been very interested in how music interacts with those states of consciousness and how it can support people in these different situations… So I actually thought I was making a record that was essentially music to die to. But lo and behold, these catchy choruses started coming out. It soon became clear that there was a voice coming through that was something a little more what my audience is used to.”

While a release date is still to be determined – “later in the year” is all he'll let on – Lee is previewing the new record by playing a couple of intimate Australian club shows. Supported by The Voice alumni Danny Ross, he's looking forward to getting up close and personal with his audiences: “[These shows] will be really stripped-back, but it'll be nice to have some layers and some harmonies. I've always enjoyed the ability as a songwriter to pull it back to its simplest elements, which is harder to do if you're a band or a song and dance. It's one of virtues of folk music or singer-songwriter music – you can always bring it back to guitar and vocals.”

The setlist is a work in progress, but with a catchy new record in the pipeline surely there'll be some Love Is The Great Rebellion songs mixed in with the hits? “I think you do have some freedom with smaller audiences. For people who like my music it felt like I was making a classic Ben Lee record, so I'm looking forward to playing some new songs. In saying that, if you come to my show, I don't think it's unfair of you to expect me to play Catch My Disease; I think that's a pretty fair expectation as a consumer,” he laughs. “I can always promise that I'll do my best. I will show up to play and connect with my audience. I'm always trying not to just go through the motions or be a robot and be mechanised in my approach.

“I really want to get behind this record. I'm told that this music is accessible and it's music that I think, if given a chance, a broader audience will like, so I'd really like to support it a bit.”