Lorde has announced a new 100-page photo book documenting her travels in Antarctica. GOING SOUTH features images shot by her friend, Harriet Were, from their 2019 trip to the continent, as well as a written piece from the artist herself. 

The “Green Light” singer made the announcement in her newsletter, sent to fans yesterday. “When I went to Antarctica, I hadn’t yet started writing again after finishing Melodrama,” she wrote. “I realised after the trip that what my brain had been craving was a visit to an alternate realm. 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.”

“In the plane coming down to land,” Lorde added, “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.”

Any hopes of making this a last-minute Christmas gift have been dashed however as the artist said it won’t be ready in time: “We’re doing preorders to get an idea of how many to produce, so it won’t arrive for Christmas I wouldn’t think”.

Lorde previously said in her newsletter from May that work on her new album was going well: “The work is so fucking good, my friend,” she said “I am truly jazzed for you to hear it.”