Perhaps you’ve wondered what singer, songwriter, and champion of democracy Lorde has been up to lately. In an email to fans on Tuesday, Lorde answered this question in the form of a book announcement. “In early 2019 I took a trip to Antarctica … The continent has fascinated me since I was old enough to read,†she wrote. “I was accompanied down there by my beautiful friend Harriet Were, who photographed our days, lugging all these cameras and lenses and film — yup, she shot completely on film in Antarctica — around in the snow. And 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.â€
The book, titled GOING SOUTH, compiles photos from Were and writing from Lorde, who revealed in her email that the trip helped her creative process for her newest album, writing, “When I went to Antarctica, I hadn’t yet started writing again after finishing Melodrama. I realised after the trip that what my brain had been craving was a visit to an alternate realm.†The singer also shared that GOING SOUTH serves as a “perfect precursor to this album in an abstract way,†adding that it’s a “cool little piece of the Lorde cinematic universe.†It’s unclear if Lorde has trademarked the “Lorde cinematic universe†(LCU) but she certainly should. The book is available for preorder here, with all proceeds going towards climate change research.