‘The work is so f*cking good, my friend. I am truly jazzed for you to hear it.’
Since Lorde finished promoting her 2017 album Melodrama, she has kept a decidedly low profile (although she popped up on The Late Show a few months ago). Over the past couple years, however, she has kept her fans updated via the occasional email, with one dispatch coming in 2018 and another a year later. Now she has blessed digital inboxes across the world again with another lengthy message, and it includes promising album updates.
She begins:
“Well hello there. I realised the other day it had been a minute since we chatted, and I was missing you. Do you wear your hair long or short now? Did you take your piercings out? You’ll probably be pleased to know my hair is big and long again. I think after Melodrama came out I said I wouldn’t put out another record until my hair was long– both because hair takes time to grow, and I knew I needed time, and because I knew the next record would require the longest and wildest hair yet.”
She goes on to say that she returned to the studio with Jack Antonoff towards the end of last year, and that she is happy with the results of those sessions. She also suggests that it might still be a while before she has a new album on the way:
“I started going back to the studio again in December, just for something to do, and to my surprise, good things came out. Happy, playful things. I felt my melodic muscles flexing and strengthening. Jack came over to work in the studio in Auckland, and I went to LA. It flowed. A thing started to take shape. And then, of course, the world shut down. We’re still working away — Jack and I FaceTimed for over an hour this morning going over everything. But it’ll take a while longer. […] I want nothing more than to feed you treats, pop perfect morsels straight into your little mouths. But as I get older I realise there’s something to be said for the pleasant feeling of waiting for something of quality to become available to you. […] I can tell you, this new thing, it’s got its own colours now. If you know anything about my work, you’ll know what that means. […] The work is so f*cking good, my friend. I am truly jazzed for you to hear it.”
Lorde also wrote about the psychological impact touring has on her, but that she’s looking forward to doing it again:
“I knew I needed a break from touring at the end of the last cycle. I was finding the combination of brutal stage fright and having no fixed home and no connection with what I ate or where I lived extremely grim. […] I wasn’t sure if I’d tour again for a long time. And I still don’t know what touring is gonna look like for me, sensitive sweet pea plant that I am. But I know now how excited I am to get back out there. I want to be playing festivals again — hearing my intro music, watching the band walk onstage. […] Who knows when it’ll be safe to do those things, but I’m craving them, and I wanted you to know.”
Read Lorde’s full email below.
“Well hello there. I realised the other day it had been a minute since we chatted, and I was missing you.
