Lorde Working on New Material, Australian Tour Being Planned

If 2013 was the year of our Lorde, expect 2014 to be, well, much the same.

The New Zealand sensation (real name Ella Yelich-O'Connor) is working on new material, which she intends to put-to-tape in the near future, Billboard.com can reveal. And there are plans to play live dates much closer to home.

“I’ve been writing but I haven’t really had time to hit the studio as of yet,” she told Billboard during her recent trip to Sydney, where she performed at the ARIA Awards – her first time on Australian TV. On her plans for working up new material, “That’ll be the end of this year, or next year,” she says.

Lorde’s breakthrough this year came in record-breaking fashion, and it’s been truly global. The teen became the first New Zealand solo artist to have a No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, when “Royals” topped out for more than two months. She also became the first solo female to crown Billboard's Nielsen BDS-based Alternative Songs chart in more than 17 years.

Lorde: The Billboard Cover Story

All told, “Royals” led the official sales chart in more than a dozen countries, including Australia, where’s it’s triple platinum, and the album from which it comes (“Pure Heroine”) was a chart-topper. In her homeland, she grabbed five NZ Music Awards. And in the new year, she has a chance to take home Grammys in the categories for Record of the Year and Song of the Year.

There’s a hint Lorde may tour Australia and New Zealand next year. It’s early days yet, but pencil-in dates for May. “Yes, absolutely. Yeah, we’ve got lots of stuff being planned,” she says about a tour Down Under for early 2014. “We’ll have to wait and see. Those (NZ dates) will be amazing.”