After six years without a new full-length album, Grimes is officially entering a new era. The Canadian experimental pop artist has shared “Accelerando,” a new single featuring producer VADAKIN, alongside a striking music video that leans into the futuristic dystopia that has long been part of her creative world. The track serves as the first taste of her upcoming album, PSY OPERA, which does not yet have a confirmed release date. “Accelerando” finds Grimes pushing toward a darker, more aggressive sound.
Watch Grimes’s “Accelerando”
Accelerando is a direction to gradually increase the tempo, but the concept also reflects the track’s broader concerns with a world seemingly moving faster by the day. Grimes has described the song as reflecting her anxieties about rapidly advancing technology and the development of increasingly dangerous weapons. It’s a fitting introduction to a record that promises to explore artificial intelligence, internet culture, religion, war and the complicated relationship between humanity and the technologies it creates.
The release also arrives alongside the announcement of PSY OPERA, Grimes’ first album since 2020’s Miss Anthropocene. She will release the forthcoming project through her own label, Nazgul Recording LLC, following her departure from Columbia Records. According to Pitchfork, the album will draw on the experiences and ideas that occupied Grimes during her time away from pop music. Artificial intelligence has remained a major part of Grimes’ public creative interests in recent years, and the new project appears ready to explore that fascination from multiple angles. Despite the album’s AI-centered themes, Grimes has clarified that she does not use generative AI to make her music, though she has experimented with the technology in visual projects. Whether PSY OPERA follows the same sonic direction remains to be seen, but this first preview makes the upcoming record one to keep an eye on.
Photo Credit: Owen Ela
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