Lorde has announced a new photo book documenting her 2019 trek to Antarctica. Titled GOING SOUTH, the book compiles over 100 pages of photos (shot by Lorde’s friend Harriet Were) and writings from her trip to the continent.
Lorde announced the book in a newsletter sent to fans yesterday (November 24). “[Antarctica] has fascinated me since I was old enough to read,” she wrote. “It started to interest me again in recent years as my environmental awareness went up and up, and questions about how to change my personal and professional footprints on this earth occupied much of my time.”
The trip, which was funded by government agency Antarctica New Zealand, took place before she began writing new material following the release of Melodrama. “I realised after the trip that what my brain had been craving was a visit to an alternate realm,” she explained. “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, 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.”
You can pre-order GOING SOUTH here. All proceeds from sales of the book will go towards an Antarctica New Zealand postgraduate scholar to study the science of climate change.
Melodrama came out back in 2017. In a newsletter from May, Lorde revealed that work is well underway a new record. “The work is so fucking good, my friend,” she wrote. “I am truly jazzed for you to hear it.”