Photo by Eli Russell Linnetz
Avant-pop star Grimes took to social media last week to reveal details about her forthcoming album. The sixth LP from the Canadian singer and producer is shaping up to be a high concept cyber pop opera about a queer AI looking for love. In a lengthy reply to a fan’s comment on Instagram, Grimes revealed that the album will tell the story of a character called “CLAIRE DE LUNE – an artificial courtesan who was implanted in a simulation.” This simulation is, according to Grimes, “a memory of the AI creation story on earth from the brain of the engineer who invented AI because he wants to re live his life but see if his perfect dream girl could teach him to love and thereby he would preserve humanity this time rather than let them fade into obscurity – overcome by the machines.”
The singer went on to explain that as Claire de Lune “…slowly realises she is essentially a dancing puppet for the male gaze tho, their relationship grows complex. Simultaneously – “NO ONE” (the most powerful super intelligence in the future where the simulation is being rendered from) realises there’s a massive hyper-realistic sim running and sends in her troll AI puppets to wreak havoc.” There is also an AI demon named Dark Matter and a lesbian romance that unfolds between said demon and Claire de lune.
Grimes has suggested that this narrative is just the beginning of a larger story, but that the album will only cover this first part. No word yet on the name of the upcoming project, which will be Grimes’ first release on her new label, Columbia Records and will follow last year’s acclaimed Miss Anthropocene. However, a link has been added to her Instagram which directs fans and users to a site called clairedelune.io, which requests visitors to join a waiting list by providing their numbers and email addresses. While no official release date has been given to the project, the site’s tab leaves a mysterious clue: “COMING 4200AD.”
Grimes recently teased new music on two occasions. She shared a snippet of a track believed to be called Shinigami Eyes with fans on Discord, and earlier this month shared footage of EDM DJ Chris Lake playing an unreleased collaboration at a festival in Arizona.
