Lorde Has Written A Book, And It’s A ‘Precursor’ To Her Next Album
"I have some exciting news. Not that news."
Lorde has surprised fans with news she’s written a book, Going South, calling it a “perfect precursor” to her anticipated third album, albeit “in an abstract way”.
Announcing the book in her newsletter, Lorde updated fans on her vegetable garden, and said she was thinking of friends and loved ones across the world, “keeping indoors, lighting candles and tightening circles”. For those struggling with things to do while trying to slow the second wave of COVID-19 across the globe, Lorde had a few recommendations, including watching Chinatown or Queen’s Gambit, or listening to Talking Heads.
She then said was “here in your inbox because I have some exciting news. Not that news. Don’t get too excited. Just a moderate amount.”
We don’t get an update on the follow-up album to 2017’s Melodrama, but an insight into a 2019 trip to Antarctica with government agency Antarctica New Zealand: Going South is a collection of writing by herself and photography by friend Harriet Were from the trip.
“The pictures turned out so beautiful, I thought it was only right to make them into a little catalogue-style book, alongside a piece of writing I did about my experience on the frozen continent,” she wrote. “It’s called Going South, and it’s a softcover book with over 100 pages of photos and writing.”
Lorde does offer a little context for the time period, calling it a ‘great white palette cleanser’ she needed to begin writing music again.
“Albums live in their own realms in a way, and Antarctica really acted as this great white palette cleanser, a sort of celestial foyer I had to move through in order to start making the next thing,” she wrote.
“In the plane coming down to land, I had this very intense bolt-of-lightning thought, which in all its eloquence was literally ‘DON’T MAKE SHIT RECORDS’, lol. I’ll always hold this trip up as a life highlight for many reasons, but I’m particularly grateful for it as one that showed me the beginnings of the new world which I continue to build, and am very excited to start showing you soon.”
“The book is a sort of perfect precursor to this album in an abstract way, and it’s a cool little piece of the Lorde cinematic universe for you to own if you’d like to.”
Lorde is now offering pre-orders on her website, though they’ve already sold out at time of publishing. All net proceeds will go towards a scholarship for an Antarctica New Zealand postgrad scholar researching climate change.
“Imagine if we could put someone through a climate-related PhD with this little book! It’s almost too awesome to think about.”
You can find a link to preorder the book here, estimated to ship out in February 2021. Lorde also has an essay on her Antarctica trip in the new issue of NZ magazine Metro (which is where this article’s image is from): it’s unclear whether this is the same as what will feature in Going South.
.@Lorde in Antarctica for Metro Magazine’s Summer 2020/21 issue.
Buy/subscribe for Lorde’s exclusive essay: https://t.co/fJ6uaykZIu pic.twitter.com/c8wgsiO4UH
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) November 25, 2020
Lorde has repeatedly teased new music for next year, promising the new album is “really fucking good”.
Photo Credit: Krists Luhaers, (CC BY 2.0)