Grimes releases “Accelerando” as AI-themed PSYOPERA takes shape

Grimes has announced PSYOPERA, her first full-length album in six years, and released its lead single, “Accelerando.” The project has no announced release date or complete tracklist, but follows 2020’s “Miss Anthropocene” and is her first album for her own label, Nazgul Recording LLC, after leaving Columbia. The rollout began with the trailer “Eve Is Online...” on Oct. 7, according to The Fader. It opens with the instruction, “Please wait patiently for the failure of the system,” before combining dystopian scenes, mid-20th-century warfare footage, alien-baby statues and intergalactic battleships. Its narration recasts the opening of the Gospel of John around artificial intelligence, including the line: “On the first day, God created the large language model.” Grimes’ Instagram visuals also included behind-the-scenes footage of the video being shot in IMAX. The imagery brings together religion, AI, politics, war, totalitarianism and the internet. “Accelerando” arrived on Oct. 9. The song was co-produced by Grimes and Vadakin, and Rolling Stone described it as recalling elements of “Miss Anthropocene.” Its video shows Grimes in chains, being burned at the stake and wielding a gun during an android battle. Grimes has described Psy Opera as addressing “the AI debate,” immoral wars, a bad former partner, looksmaxers and religion. “The Light Ages” and “Eve Is Online” have also been identified as album songs. In an April conversation with Interview, she said the project would combine pop songs with experimental spoken-word material. The AI focus is qualified by Grimes’ own account of how the music was made. She said she does not use generative AI in her music, apart from “DeepSeek,” whose lyrics were partly written by the AI model of the same name. AI was used for the video for the first song, though she said she rejected AI-generated dancers because she considers dance, language and music fundamental human forms of expression. The album follows a prolonged break from full-length releases. Grimes said in April that she had quit music a couple of years earlier amid difficult experiences in public and private life and while raising children. She resumed writing after making a rap for a K-pop artist, then keeping the material for herself. Her return continues a longstanding engagement with machines and music. In 2023, she offered to split royalties equally on successful AI-generated songs using her voice, amid the industry’s response to tracks trained on artists’ voices. She has also said she is working on “First Contact,” a documentary about machine consciousness.