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A note from Lorde

(27/03/2024) ("Take Me to the River" cover release)

Hey you, it's me

Today my version of "take Me To The River" from the Stop Making Sense compilation comes out. Do you remember the first time you ever heard Talking Heads? I'll tell you my story.

Ok, it's 2008. I'm twelve years old, eyes painted black, jaw blasted with acne. My bedroom is a nest of posters, broken toys, street signs. I've kissed with tongue.

Something's happening to me: i am beginning to ooze out in every direction. I feel a constant burning urge to express myself, to draw a map that leads to who l am. I can't get it right; there's deep discomfort in this, and I have no choice but to keep trying.

At the same time, I'm realising that if I look at a picture or listen to a song sometimes a surge of feeling will take over my whole body. In this way, I can remove my strange-feeling insides and replace them with whatever I want. I can't predict what exactly will do this to me, so I have to try everything. Things are either corny, or they're cool. Occasionally, the thing that replaces my insides is a total mystery to me, not corny or cool but somehow both, and through this feeling I have my first experiences with the divine.

My mother, an artist herself, sees the ooze. She brings her laptop into my room one night and puts on a Youtube video. It's grainy, 240p at best. In the video I see a band from another time performing on a TV show. The lead singer wears a suit, has high cheekbones and slicked-back dark hair. To his left a blonde girl plays bass. They stand in pools of light. The dark haired man is singing a song about wanting someone, not being sure why. He is a preacher, a controlled fire, a wild animal. He's moving like ive never seen anyone move, and his eyes are rolling back in his head. He knows how it feels to kiss with tongue. The wifi signal drops in and out from downstairs.

I feel a portal open between me and the screen. Humour, lust, rhythm and ritual course through me. I don't understand what I'm feeling, but I do understand that the band in the grainy video live with the same strangeness that I do. My palms tingle. My insides are replaced.

This version of the first Talking Heads song I ever heard was done in a few days in Echo Park, L.A. with my friend Jimmy. It's my interpretation of that pixellated spiritual experience. We did it fast, I didn't let myself tidy it up too much, it had to feel young and imperfect, the peeling posters, the jaw of acne. It's beyond a great honour to be part of this compilation. In doing so, I am reaching back through time and pinning something to that kid's wall.

Hope you like it

PS* Immediately after that Top of the Pops clip finished, I had my first of many, many viewings of Stop Making Sense. I am truly changed as I know you were too by that group of people on the Pantages stage moving together with warmth, strangeness and pure cool. It was so great to go to the theatre and feel that again on a big screen. Love to DB, Tina, Jerry and Chris, and to Lynn, Edna, Alex, Steve, and Bernie Worrell.

(source: A24 newsletter)

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Pure Heroine turns 10

(27/09/2023) (PH 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY DISPATCH)

Living in Ruins of a Palace within My Dreams

Photo by Simeon Patience

Hi,

Firstly, I wanna say thank you for your extremely supportive and kind messages after my last newsletter. I genuinely feel deeply cared for, less alone, and more sure that things will be okay after sending it! Albeit with a slight overshare hangover. I think a part of me knew that I had hit a wall, and that I needed to invite in the compassion and understand I’d been struggling to generate on my own, and then I’d have something to draw from and mirror. It feels like it’s working. I feel incredibly grateful that we have this relationship, that we can each give when the other needs it. Beautiful stuff x

Now, might U have noticed it’s 2013 mode round here????????? Yes that’s right, it’s a very special anniversary… Pure Heroine is... ˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡TEN ˚*ੈ✩‧₊˚ YEARS ˚༘♡ ⋆｡˚ OLD ੈ✩‧₊˚ TODAY ! ˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚

You may (like me most of the time) hold the opinion that this album has been MYTHOLOGISED QUITE ENOUGH, but a milestone is a milestone, so I thought coming here and typing some shit to u about this time would be a fun thing for those who care.

2 xxxxtra special ltd time only commemorative designs by Hassan, who did the original of this bootleg tee 10 years ago❤️

It’s close to midnight, and I’ve just finished scrolling through my entire computer and phone archive from 2011-2013. Going on this memory lane ride has reminded me, for one thing, what a different time it was technologically. We were just starting to be able to see ourselves in real time, but we weren’t constantly connected. I had an iPod touch until halfway through 2013, which didn’t have a front camera or internet access, and my sister and I shared a MacBook, which is where we did our schoolwork and I wrote my lyrics. I took my first few years of selfies on Photo Booth…. Just let that… sink in!!!

Note the Royals Nat Geo pic in background— it’s happening...

When I was fourteen, my greatest work of art was my bedroom. A very cool, very classic teenage bedroom, Andie’s and Duckie’s from Pretty in Pink meets the Virgin Suicides— fairy lights, fabric on the ceiling, candles, stolen road signs (badman), paper lanterns, beer crate shelves, magazine pictures and club night posters and permanent marker on the walls. Bliss! I’d sit up there and vibe out, taking a lot of selfies. Creating a small-scale work of art using the self, and then examining the product from every angle, was the best method I had to express myself and exercise creativity at that time, and I now see it as an important PH incubation phase, whether I knew it or not. Something really amazing about a young person starting to see their own face and body for the first time, coming to a very secret understanding that they are beautiful. 

I started to smoke weed, which gave me a deeper understanding of sensory pleasure, and allowed me to start to see my world as a possible work of art. I’d go on long walks around the neighbourhood, and began to mythologise the stuff around me (big empty floodlit rugby fields/bus rides/dark streets/boredom/isolation) into the motifs that would become Pure Heroine. I wore a lot of like, navy lipsticks from the 2 dollar shop. God, this aesthetic, It’s just TOO MUCH.

At some point in here, I met Joel, and another piece of the puzzle clicked into place. When you’re a teenager, you’re particularly sensitive to adults being condescending to you, not respecting the specific and finely tuned skills you have because of the ones you don’t. I was always on the look out for it, and from the first day meeting Joel, I knew that he would never give me that feeling. Which I’m sure wasn’t easy — my wallet at the time was the foot of a pair of tights that I cut off and knotted at the top — but somehow from the very beginning he made me feel like my ideas had value, like we were peers, in the most sensitive and age-appropriate way. 

My view for thousands of hours making this album

We got on a call earlier this week and broke down the complete history of making the album. We both agreed that making Pure Heroine was deeply exciting and intimate and free, and still one of our most treasured experiences. I’ve linked it here.The second half of 2013 is when I really met the world, went to America and Australia and Europe for the first time. I found an incredible (for some reason Christmas themed) disposable camera image of my stage outfits all over the floor of my hotel room, which really sums up how ad hoc everything was at the beginning — a jetlagged sixteen year old, late for lobby call and frantically stuffing thousands of dollars of borrowed clothes into a suitcase. 

In this stage, it felt like I pulled everything off by the skin of my teeth. Every week was the most exciting week of my whole life, I was so tired and still didn’t have a winter coat and took everyone clamouring for a piece of me completely for granted. I had zero cultural context, had no idea if an interview or TV show was huge or small, and so breezed through it all truly not giving a fuck. I am not a naturally nonchalant person, it was literally just too much to care about, I could hardly get up in the morning, so I just said absolutely whatever I felt like, all kinds of wild shit, if someone did something corny I’d say so, I was ruthless in that way that only teens are. Then through that year we went on our first tours, met you guys for the first time, hours and hours of hugs after the show, my favourite part so far and where it started to feel real for me. James took a lot of beautiful film photos through that time, and I’m really grateful he did.

Ten years goes really fast. One minute you’re wearing a leather collar with a giant crystal hanging off it to a Chanel party, and the next you’re blonde. A lot of stuff isn’t good after ten years. But I am still totally touched by this sweet record. I have deep respect for the vision of the little one making it. 

Going back through all of this has reminded me of something that feels important to point out, whether you make art or not: everything starts out as a bunch of bullshit in a laptop. Pure Heroine was a handful of Photo Booth selfies and emotional Word documents and Tumblr posts (and a gorgeous over-decorated bedroom) before it was even one song. I had no reason, on paper, to believe that I was capable of anything. But if you can trust that the first impulse you had to create came from a place of deep wisdom, develop a few principles for your decision-making, and absorb a lot of stuff you find inspiring, you’ll have something special on your hands. Pure Heroine exists because I had the tiniest inkling of what I’ve now come to see as one of my guiding principles: that each of us have a handful of songs inside us that are ours, and only ours, to sing. Your specific interests and upbringing and physiology and experiences exist only in you; you are sitting on a gold mine that no one can rob. Whatever that means to you, whatever that statement you were born to make is, I invite you to take a big breath and make it.

All my love for another ten years of all this, and more, and more—

Ella XXXXXXXXXX

(source: received this email)

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how I’ve been, revised

(20/09/2023) (Solar Institute Bulletin No. 22) (From London)

Aftershow quiet in Helsinki

Hey,

I just finished writing you a long letter, catching you up on how I’ve been. It ended neatly, tied with a little bow. I chose my words well, but I didn’t tell the truth. So I’m starting again, gonna type and not look back, and send what comes out.

I’m in London, have been since May. Things feel clear here. I haven’t seen many friends; mostly, I’m alone with my thoughts. I go swimming, I go to work, I walk home or take the train, I eat in my kitchen, I go to bed thinking about what I’m making. I’m starting to miss my friends and family, like a vitamin I’m deficient in. Soon I’ll be going back to New York, and then home.

I’m living with heartbreak again. It’s different but the same. I ache all the time, I forget why and then remember. I’m not trying to hide from the pain, I understand now that pain isn’t something to hide from, that there’s actually great beauty in moving with it. But sometimes I’m sick of being with myself. I eat chocolate to try and manipulate the endorphins, bring back the sweet happiness of Easter morning. I sit in the time machine and wait for it to move, but it hasn’t been invented yet.

My body is really inflamed, it’s trying to tell me something and I’m trying to support it but nothing seems to help and I get frustrated. My gut isn’t working properly, my skin is worse than ever, I’ve gotten sick half a dozen times. I realised earlier this year that listening to my body is hard for me, it’s something I never really learned how to do. I’ve been trying to teach myself that this year, but it’s been hard actually, pretty confronting, has made me fully aware of all the times I ignored it or didn’t give it what it needed, shamed it for a fight or flight response, took a handful of pills and pushed through. The little yellow pill I took every morning for thousands of mornings since I was 15, I stopped taking it 5 days ago. Gonna see how it goes.

I go online and look at everyone. Beautiful people sing to me. Everyone’s gotten really good at the same thing. I look at arched backs and wet flower mouths, the right bag, the right sunglasses. I wonder if it feels as good as it looks, it’s been so long since I chose the best picture from a hundred, lined it up like pulling an arrow taut in a bow, and let it go. Everyone looks very thin. Just thinking that makes me feel tired and far away. I’m not sure if it’s having an effect on anyone else. I keep spending money, wondering if what’s in the package will make me feel right, but I guess I buy the wrong things. I was gonna go to fashion week in Paris, had all these grand plans, but this week I txted my manager and pulled out. At the start of my career I promised myself I’d never be one of the people in the light smiling if it wasn’t real.

Earlier this year, I ate two handfuls of mushrooms, solid doses that tasted like green dirt. I got a lot of information about what my body had been through in our time so far, what it needed, where God was and where God wasn’t; I felt in my bones how destabilising it is to leave home and start a new life the way I did. I also saw that my body is completely magnificent, and that hating it is as futile as hating a tree; that I truly, truly love doing my job, and that my life is like a beautiful tapestry, and every inch of it is precious and has meaning.

It might seem funny or be easy to forget, but I make records because I need to. The songs are spells; a spell to let go of something, a spell to unlock a door. Every time I put something into words just as I see it, set it to the right music, a knot comes loose in me. But it hurts too, confronting the knots. I’ve made enough records to know that this feeling of my skin coming off is part of it. I know I’m gonna look back on this year with fondness and a bit of awe, knowing it was the year that locked everything into place, the year that transitioned me from my childhood working decade to the one that comes next — one that even through all this, I’m so excited for. It’s just hard when you’re in it.

So in this state, I went out on a short European festival tour. We built a cool new version of the show in a couple days. It was good to change gears and get out of my head. I put effort into the show, changing the setlist and arrangements, it was cool how you picked up on that, and it felt good dancing to the new versions with you, looking out at you, all sweaty with your friends, all on the same drugs. I felt the throb of history that’s under this music now, how each year makes these songs feel more like collectively written and sung pieces. I left my body and merged with yours and it was ecstasy. Then I went home to a business hotel and washed the glitter and smoke out of my hair.

Lauren took some beautiful pictures — sharing a few with you here.

Backstage in Portugal.

Cute Polaroid series of the 6pm, 8pm, and 10pm versions of me on a show day.

I’ve read some great books recently, including Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk, Speedboat by Renata Adler, Motherhood by Sheila Heti, Rough Translations by Molly Giles (brought into my life by sweet angel bookworm Chris Chang), Birds of America by Lorrie Moore; am waiting on my copies of ĀRIA by Jessica Hinerangi and Te Ana Ata: Menstruation In The Pre-Colonial Maori World by Ngāhuia Murphy. Was given Wawata - Moon Dreaming by Dr. Hinemoa Elder which I’m loving looking to as the Maramataka evolves.

It was Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori last week, I loved listening to this from London. This vid from Hemi showing the similarities between te reo Māori and ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi is so sick.

Been meaning to tell you about The Kindness Institute too, a mental health resource for Māori rangatahi that has recently lost government funding. Go check out the beautiful, necessary mahi they’re doing — I know the cost of living is cooked for Kiwis right now and pop stars asking people to donate sux, but if you work at a good sized company maybe you can wrangle a donation from your employers?! I’m gonna email my record company about it.

Other bits that have inspired lately:

Dieter Rams’ principle of “as little design as possible”. This fantastic interview with Thom Yorke. Maddie’s unbelievably beautiful Melo inspired tattoo.

Loving the beautiful new Troye songs and vids, Kelela’s Raven hitting right on the e-bike rides home, late to the magic of Frou Frou but glad I’m here, and the rest of my brain is M.T. Hadley, this great Te Whanganui-a-Tara based band Womb, and Talk Talk. And for those it concerns, have been pilled by parasocial big cousins Jason and Chris. My mum just sent me a Sylvia Plath poem that feels like it sums up the above, I’ll copy it here:

They thought death was worth it, but I Have a self to recover, a queen. Is she dead, is she sleeping? Where has she been, With her lion-red body, her wings of glass?

Now she is flying More terrible than she ever was, red Scar in the sky, red comet Over the engine that killed her— The mausoleum, the wax house.

Sylvia Plath, "Stings"

Hope you’re taking care of yourself. Don’t worry about me, I still laugh every day, it’s all moving, even when it goes slow. I’ve accepted the mission — I have a self to recover.

Speak soon, E X X X X X

(source: received this email)

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OUR SUN SETS — tour reflections edition

(28/03/2023) (Solar Institute Bulletin No. 21) (From Auckland)

She emerges! by Aleks Zaric

Hello darling friend, Whoaaaaah it’s been a minute since I wrote. Something died inside my laptop, and I’ve been putting off the repair for a few months (stubborn refusal to form a relationship with another bit of tech?), but the realisation that I was actively not doing my job due to not having one made me bite the bullet. How have you been??? Last time we spoke I was in South America, just about to turn twenty six, at the tail end of a big year of shows. Got off the plane in New Zealand and torpedoed straight into bed with a fevery cold, emerged a week later into the chaos of December, typically the start of the beautiful summer days here, instead that of several months of storms and humid rain. I wrote this, back then: “I’m playing this song my brother showed me, Mariella, over and over. It sounds like how I feel these days, soft with some pain, the voice of someone who’s touched a lot of beautiful things. This year has wrung me out. I’m a rag. I’m the t-shirts and underwear I hand-washed in so many hotel sinks. Christmas is a tall wave and I haven’t bought anyone gifts.” Always amused by the drama of the past self! Had some lush swims between the storms, cooked a lot of fish, set off on the Aus/NZ tour feeling relaxed and unwound.

Off grid bb.

A couple days ago, we played the last official sundial-and-eight-band-members show for Solar Power, the last of 70 shows in 20 countries (!!). I feel actual pride in myself, something that’s extremely hard for me to let myself feel, not just for completing it but for loving it, relaxing into it, feeling really open and free and not tight and fearful like tours past. I want to thank you for your part. I’ve always felt that pop music is a collaboration between artist and audience, that a pop song isn’t truly finished until listeners add their voices to it, and I think the same goes for your participation in the show. You show up and you sing every word, and all of our voices is what we all hear. At this stage in the piece I feel there are no casual fans, just people singing extremely loudly and clearly for 100+ minutes, and the commitment and generosity of this is not lost on me. The final show in Perth was an encapsulation of how special and right this tour has felt. We played at a beautiful grass and stone amphitheatre outside the city. I cried at soundcheck thanking the crew, overwhelmed by the love and care behind this group of people working so hard to get it right for me. At showtime the stars were clear and you could smell eucalyptus mixing with the smoke machine. We did the show for the last time looking over at one another and smiling, savouring all the last times we’d do things. I took my place for Royals and in the first flash of white light I saw a silk thread. In the next flash I followed the thread down to find a thick black spider, maybe an inch and a half long, two feet away from my eyes. I gasped and drew the microphone towards me, watched it slowly travel all the way back up the truss. Some kind of special omen.

Touring this record changed how I heard and saw the album — I wonder if you felt this too? — showed me that a work is constantly shifting and in progress, the definition changing all the time. Looking back yesterday at some of your pictures from the show, sourced by the very dedicated and special twitter account Lorde_fix, I realised that you give me the opportunity to see myself in states of power, glory, grace, sides of myself I don’t think I’d be able to access or see as clearly if not for these nights together. 

Your pix I loveeeeee <333

I said onstage that night that making and touring this album has set so much right inside me, I truly think it’s bought me decades in this bizzzzniz, can’t wait to show you what I mean. I finish this chapter feeling for the first time not like I need to get away from the world but like I want to get deeper inside it, more countries, more flavours, more life. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Here’s a little Aus tour diary, by Aleks Zaric:

Moments after coming offstage in Perth

Levitating!

Makeup removal, and a scenario with MUNA that I cannot fucking explain -so special to have them join us on this run

11:52pm: standing on the stage in Sydney after you all went home.

So. Where to now? [REDACTED] I guess I’m not telling, not for a while. I’ll send you an update from time to time though, now that the laptop’s back online. Special books I’ve read recently: Notes by Eleanor Coppola My Phantoms by Gwendoline Riley Getting Lost by Annie Ernaux Second Place by Rachel Cusk Life’s Work by David Milch Dinner With Lenny by Jonathan Cott Books I’ve ordered: Love Me Tender - Constance Debre The Nature Book - Tom Comitta Small Fires - Rebecca May Johnson Animal Joy - Nuar Alsadir Alma Mahler’s diaries The People’s Hospital - Ricardo Nuila Idra Novey - Take What You Need Gwendoline Riley - First Love Jenny Odell - Saving Time

Oh, I had a party in December and made a really nice punch based off a post I saw from Stissing House. I’m copying the loose/made-up recipe here, give it a try if you like! 1 cup gin 1/2 cup chartreuse 1 1/2 cup green tea 1/2 cup pineapple 3 cups soda water 1/2 cup citrus (lemon/grapefruit/lime) Lots of fresh mint Topped up with extra citrus as the night went on.

Leaving you with a beautiful bit of fan art, basically how I envisioned the SP universe, a fitting way to say — for the last time — serve the bees… wear sunscreen… thank you and goodniiiiiiiiight! I love you so much. Speak soon, from somewhere, E

PS. BONUS SECRET CONTENT::: The pillow I commissioned from Bode for my dressing room before the tour started, feat. all the things that make me feel calm — grapefruit fruju, hibiscus, kissing, Pearl, books, bud.

(source: received this email)

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PART TWO: A little spiel and a REINTRODUCTION!!!!

(09/11/2022) (Solar Institute Bulletin No. 20) (From Rio de Janeiro)

In São Paulo, running towards 26. Photos by Lauren Tepfer

Good morning cuties… or should I say Oi!!!! I landed in Brasil a few hours ago. The pop star river runs — stumble half asleep into a waiting car, get to a lovely hotel room, eat some papaya off a gorgeous fruit plate, shower, crash out. I sit typing this at a wooden table near a window, looking out over Sao Paulo. A security guard waits in the hall outside my room. In total there are five men being paid to protect my body this week. I love coming to Brasil, and South America in general, and look forward to it for years. I can never believe the way the Brasilian kids took to my music, this kid from so far away somehow making sense to them, and the shows are totally electric and emotional and play on a loop in my brain for years. I love the food and the architecture and the trees. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a completely surreal feeling getting on a plane in one country with relative physical anonymity, and getting off in another to literal flash-using paparazzi and gorgeous crying kids. It happens for all of 10 days of a year, so I still think it’s sort of bizarre and eerie and a little bit fabulous, someone else’s life. I’m struck by how truly odd the notion of having a security guard is, still like something out of a movie to me, and how inextricably linked it is with coming to America. My first security guard met me at LAX and guided me through a scrum of autograph hunters with a gun tucked into his belt. Proper Dorothy not in Kansas any more moment. Today I feel like an exotic tropical fish, big slow blinks and gorgeous fins, and I’ll swim around and around in my little bowl until showtime. 

My pretty fishbowl

When you read this, by the way, I’ll be twenty fucking six. TWENTY SIX! Kinda can’t believe that, but on the other hand, absolutely can. It’s been a lifetime already, you know? Besides, the lines are only fine, my body’s fitter and stronger than ever and the spiral winds around in ways I’m finding more and more rewarding. Happy to be in this beautiful country on the day the portal opens.

Taken at sunset on birthday eve

So. Tour update incoming. But first, a spiel! I don’t know how much you’ve been following the live music industry conversation, but lemme hit you with a five minute explainer, cause I think it’s interesting, and good to know about if you’re going to concerts at the moment. Basically, for artists, promoters and crews, things are at an almost unprecedented level of difficulty. It’s a storm of factors. Let’s start with three years’ worth of shows happening in one. Add global economic downturn, and then add the totally understandable wariness for concertgoers around health risks. On the logistical side there’s things like immense crew shortages (here’s an article from last week about this in New Zealand), extremely overbooked trucks and tour buses and venues, inflated flight and accommodation costs, ongoing general COVID costs, and truly. mindboggling. freight costs. To freight a stage set across the world can cost up to three times the pre-pandemic price right now. I don’t know shit about money, but I know enough to understand that no industry has a profit margin that high. Ticket prices would have to increase to start accommodating even a little of this, but absolutely no one wants to charge their harried and extremely-compassionate-and-flexible audience any more fucking money. Nearly every tour has been besieged with cancellations and postponements and promises and letdowns, and audiences have shown such understanding and such faith, that between that and the post-COVID wariness about getting out there at all, scaring people away by charging the true cost ain’t an option. All we want to do is play for you. Profits being down across the board is fine for an artist like me. I’m lucky. But for pretty much every artist selling less tickets than I am, touring has become a demented struggle to break even or face debt. For some, touring is completely out of the question, even if they were to sell the whole thing out! The math doesn’t make sense. Understandably, all of this takes a toll — on crews, on promoters, and on artists. You’ll notice a ton of artists cancelling shows citing mental health concerns in the past year, and I really think the stress of this stuff is a factor — we’re a collection of the world’s most sensitive flowers who also spent the last two years inside, and maybe the task of creating a space where people’s pain and grief and jubilation can be held night after night with a razor thin profit margin and dozens of people to pay is feeling like a teeny bit much. Me personally? I’m doing pretty good. You guys have come to the shows in such mammoth numbers (we sold almost 20,000 tickets in London, like what the hell) and not having crippling stage fright hanging over me for the first time is such a fucking blessing that you could tell me I had to cycle from city to city and I’d still be loving it. But I’m not immune to the stress — just a month ago I was looking at a show that was pretty undersold and panicking, only for it to sell the remaining 2000 tickets in ten days. Wild stuff. I wanted to put all of this in your minds to illustrate that nothing’s simple when it comes to touring at the moment, and if your faves are confusing you with their erratic moves, some of this could be playing a part. So, without further ado, some updates:

I know it seemed extremely sus that the Down Under edition of The Solar Power Tour would ever happen. But it's almost that time! I'm honestly really glad it worked out this way, we're playing so well, and I have so much to bring to these shows now I know it inside out. So consider this a REINTRODUCTION to the tour. We're coming. It's happening. Lesgo.

-- We are thrilled to be adding a show at the Adelaide Festival on March 16th. I’m psyched about this, haven’t played in Adelaide since 2014! -- We have to cancel New Plymouth. I would love to wrap it in something to save face but honestly, it’s a pandemic and we haven’t sold enough tickets! I’m bummed, I love that venue, and I hope to play it some day in the future :—) -- Conversely, we are adding a second show at Black Barn. Yes, I know this sounds insane but the powers that be are telling me that’s what we should do. Can’t wait to find out if this was a smart move in real time alongside you, lol! This show will take place on March 2nd, and if you come, I promise you something special and completely one-off, how’s that? ticket info here. pre-sale code: strangeairlines -- I’m EXXXXTREMELY thrilled to announce the support acts for these shows - Fazerdaze and RIIKI REID in Aotearoa, and the absolute huns MUNA in Australia!!! The sublime Laura Jean will join us for Perth — you know how I feel about Touchstone and now I raise you Girls On The TV. You’re welcome. I’m really excited to play in this part of the world — it’s always a super special time for me coming home. Makes it more real. I hope I’ll see you there. We’re gonna do a little flash sale on tour merch — fab quality, fab designs, would cop if I were you. To finish, some recent Mexico pictures I loved, from Lauren’s clever lens. 

Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love (twenty six times!), L x x x x x x x PS:

(source: received this email)

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PART ONE: Eating two slices of ice cream cake with James Murphy

(04/11/2022) (Solar Institute Bulletin No. 19) (From New York)

If elegance is arriving somewhere without a commute story, then in the newslettersphere, elegance is starting your letter with anything BUT an apology for its lateness. I’ve owed you a letter for ages now, and one hasn’t come. For that, I’m sorry!!! Since the summer I’ve felt the weeks spinning through my fingers like fine thread. Airports, shows, cars, bursts of loneliness and melancholy, moments of sun. They might as well pay me in jet fuel, I’ve been on so many fucking planes this year (if you’re looking for a saviour, ETC); haven’t been in one place for more than two weeks since… July, I guess, not that that’s any sort of excuse, but things just kept happening and the list of things to tell you about kept getting longer until it was overwhelming, and so it goes. As Rachel Cusk says, one has to serve out one’s changes moderately, like strong wine. By that logic, I’ve been drunk for months, and with that state comes ups and downs — intense jonesing for home and family, a struggle at times to resource myself, feelings of inadequacy, of longing and loss. A couple times I’ve been backstage doing vocal warmups before a show thinking, What the fuck can I offer these people right now, when I myself feel as loose and spare as a tooth or a tyre? So finally today, sitting in a basement with bleach disciplining my scalp, I thought — today’s the day I’m gonna write to you. And for your troubles — TWO PARTS TO THIS BAD BOY. For all things tour — recent pics, updates on upcoming shows, et al, see part two. Between drinks, it has been an intense period of what I’d call research — not writing songs as such, but reading, conceptualising, writing a ton of stuff down, laying the foundation of… something. I’m feeling excited and challenged. A little nervous. Teeth in my shoulder.

Warmup

Milan sneak peek (more dispatched via the Institute)

Best thing seen this year - bioluminescence activated by the movement of the waves. does anyone know what kind of seaweed this is? Where my biologist SCsWWTS at?)

Bathroom floor after Primavera, Los Angeles

Have felt your love in general, these past couple months. All year, of course, but special moments keep coming sweet and bright — touching a tattoo in the rain, or my mum sending a photo of a freshie in the supermarket. Running into people who were at Radio City, hearing about everyone’s different nights — my waiter being accidentally on mushrooms there, a sweet boy in the grocery store who went by himself. And then, holy shit, the intense, overwhelming outpouring of love that was Mexico. I’m still riding high on what a warm welcome we got, how sweet and dedicated you all are, what finally being able to hug you and not let go for ten seconds felt like. I did get a terrible cold, but it was worth it. 

STARVING YOU OF LAUREN’S GORGEOUS SHOW PICS + GENERAL TOUR CONTENT BECAUSE OF PART TWO random iphone pics only!!

Have written the story of my 72 hours in Milano and where I went after as an Institute dispatch, FYI. What’s been going on with me? This podcast episode. Remember this from last year? Going to see said painting at MoMa, having mind blown. Finally going to Tiny Doll House (AS A NEW YORK ACTIVITY I REALLY. CAN’T. RECOMMEND THIS ENOUGH). Seeing Dev play in the round. Thinking about work that feels open enough to contain different stories and meanings. Sitting in the sunshine talking about hearing One Dance for the first time. Watermelon 5 gum (A DERANGED AIRPORT PURCHASE THAT I’M LOVING… XYLITOL CAN YOU BELIEVE SHE’S BEEN OUT OF NZ TOO LONG!!). Finally read Essential Labor By Angela Garbes and it blew my damn brains out. Loving Cusk, halfway through Second Place. Natasha Brown’s Assembly and David Milch’s Life’s Work waiting in the wings. Read Natalia Ginzburg’s Voices in the Evening on a beach in Greece. Always so fascinating to me as I get older and realise that the books I’m gravitating towards are a little bit like my browser search history, getting at the questions I’m asking. Domesticity, family, parenting… paging Dr. Freudette! This conversation between Hilton Als and Terrence Hayes in the Paris Review is one of the most gagging interviews I’ve ever read. The podcast POOG, which I’m late to discovering but completely obsessed with. Like the rest of New York, Kate has me in a chokehold. “As she banters about skin care, you get the sense that her refusal to play herself onstage is part of a larger personal preoccupation with the ways that the coherent “self” is always a doomed project.” (Shades of Cusk???) Gonna buy these Kari Māori cards for Christmas presents this year. This newsletter took so damn long I missed Mahuru Māori, but I consumed a ton of really thoughtful work by a variety of creators during that month, a highlight being this podcast episode reflecting on the 50 year anniversary of the Maori language petition being delivered to Parliament, and the future of reo in our country. Haven’t seen Tár yet but it’s on my list. LOVED Corsage. Wanted to like Triangle of Sadness more than I did, although it was fun in the room. Watching the movement in Iran with my heart in my mouth. I cannot believe the bravery of these women. FUCK YOU BOLSONARO AND GOOD RIDDANCE.

Leaving you with two quotes, that could be applied to making stuff, or just to living your life. “First you hate something, then you investigate why you hate something. That is exciting — and for creative people, to be excited is the only way.” From Mrs. Prada. And this, such a classic, from Kris Kristofferson upon hearing Blue for the first time: “‘Jesus, Joni,’ he said. ‘Save something for yourself.’” No. Shan’t. Throbbing with love for you. PART TWO INCOMING! E

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Summer's end

(19/08/2022) (Solar Institute Bulletin No. 18) (From an Undisclosed Paradise)

Keira onset for Atonement, 2007

Hello darlings, I write to you from summer’s end. I can’t believe it’s almost gone. Normally in these months, my whole life is lived in deference to the season. I wake up and the weather decides what I’ll do. I spend long days outside. Swims come first, and everything else in my calendar arranges itself around them. This year, the summer’s been like a movie playing in the background. I’ve kept working pretty much since tour ended, spending long days in a dark room, my brain buzzing like a fluorescent tube, eyes watering when I step back into the light. Girls with flushed cheeks walk through my neighbourhood on their way to dinner; parallel universe projections in pretty dresses. Sounds weird, and feels it a bit too, I suppose. Have a week now to swim and chill out before I see some of you again for the makeup shows. I’m looking out at the water as I write this.

Can you believe the album came out a year ago today?!!! What a beautiful blur. I can honestly say I don’t think I’ve ever grown so much in a single year. In honour of its first trip round the sun, I wanted to share the final (!!!!!!!!!!!!!😥🥺😩) video with you, for OCEANIC FEELING.

It’s bittersweet to be coming to the end of this video journey, but amazing too, because this one is possibly my FAVOURITE video I’ve ever, ever made. Who you see in this video is who I truly am, or who I want to be— open, laid bare, water glittering on my skin, speaking directly to you, nothing to hide or prove, just me. The person with me is my other half and best mate, my brother Angelo. Born on the same day five years apart, we’ve always shared a super close bond. I knew by putting him in the video, I’d be showing myself exactly as I am. Can’t be anyone else when that kid’s around. The end is super special too, an end to the video story as much as to this chapter — my community of loved ones gathered to see me off, a moment of ceremony. It was an honour to wear Simone Rocha’s raffia dresses for this. I kept thinking on the afternoon we shot it that I was marrying myself. Sounds crazy but that’s how it felt. Punctuating this period of intense self reflection with an image that pretty much splits me apart. It’s sort of the story of my life: I never know where I’m going, just that I have to go there. I’m eternally grateful to you for sticking around to see where I end up.

Some beautiful behind the scenes pics by Ophelia. Love the one of my co-director Joel and I staring at the monitor after filming the boat shot, which we did only once.

What else? We have these makeup shows coming up. I’m psyched to be getting the band back together, literally AND figuratively, lol!! Playing around with setlist at the moment — if you’re coming, wanna reply to this email with a song request? Something you genuinely wanna hear?? Let’s have fun! I’m bringing my sweet sweet friend Jim-E Stack to open these shows (he writes and produces songs for ur favs incl. Caroline Polachek, Charli XCX, Empress Of and Bon Iver). Pls welcome him warmly!!!! On the subject of shows, I’m super psyched to announce a show in Rio de Janeiro, supported by the inimitable Japanese Breakfast!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’ve never performed in Rio before, and this show falls right around my birthday. Cannot think of a more amazing birthday location. Presale starts on August 23rd at 10am BRT, code is strangeairlines always, thank you for giving me the best job in the world, we will rage. TICKETS HERE Other notable sides to this summer— Fruit. Just eat some fruit. Easy to forget this true fuckin miracle of nature. I feel almost psychedelic rapture eating summer fruit. Bite into a peach today! Dev played a warmup show the other night at Baby’s, in advance of opening for Harry this month at Madison Square Garden. The show was so beautiful, I can’t believe how lucky we are to exist at the same time as Blood Orange, but he’d doing this thing where every night, the set is recorded, printed onto CDs, and made available to buy at the merch desk. Such a sick idea. Bobby ripped the audio for me and I’ve been listening to it the last couple days, such a warm document, totally alive, the songs better than you remembered, if that’s possible. I go dumb for hearing a friend laugh softly into a microphone basically!!! If you’re going to these Harry shows, I IMPLORE you to go early for Blood Orange. Having a relationship with Dev’s music will enrich your life. I’ll probably go at least thrice.

Renell sent me this amazing skirt. I am the coolest girl in the world in this very cool skirt. It’s called the Sporty Mini, it may not be on their website right now but everything she does is cool. Here’s the stack of books I brought on holiday.

Thinking woman’s flower. Can’t stop listening to this.

Urs truly trying on a vintage Vivienne Westwood shirt the other day

Love you so much. Can’t wait to see you again soon. L X0000

PS. More incredible photos from behind the scenes of Atonement that feel very goth and end of summer to me…

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HOW’S IT GOING TO END?

(16/07/2022) (Solar Institute Bulletin No. 17) (From New York City)

(Probably written on July 15th 2022, by date written on it)

Still from The Truman Show; still from being still

FORTY. TWO. SHOWS. Shows played in beautiful theatres with gold filigree and red seats, in modernist amphitheatres looking out at the lit ends of your cigarettes, in fortresses on clifftops and thousand-year-old castles and sweaty clubs that smell like old beer. Shows played with 39 degree fever, with nausea that required a quick banana being eaten, with a salty body from the pre-soundcheck swim, with a sore knee from the Prada loafers I refuse to stop jumping in, with mood swings and shyness but never, ever stage fright. And four shows played as a blonde. It’s taken me a week to sit down and write to you as I pull the last bits from the suitcase, only just processing what a magical few months this was. It was by far one of the best seasons of my life! I cannot thank you enough for making these shows what they were. The way you jumped in the air as a group, every single show, even when you had seats hitting the backs of your knees. The bright colours you wore, the glittery eye makeup, so much care and thought going into your outfits. The way you looked out for the people around you in some of the sweatiest rooms I’ve ever been in - Paris, Birmingham - and sung EVERY FUCKING word and blew my whole crew away with the depth and force of your love. I just wanna do it again. So happy there’s still more to come.

We finished the tour in Stockholm at a festival. It was the perfect last show of tour, we all had that school’s out feel, loose and relaxed, but excited to do it well one last time. We went on at 8:30pm, the sun was glowing gold. For that hour, I watched the dream solar power scene like my own personal movie, bodies swaying, flocks of birds in V formation, dusk on the trees, a hot air balloon floating on the horizon… and this happened, for sure a first at a show of mine, just all so fun and beautiful and shit my kids will be sick of hearing about when I’m old. 

Now I’m back in the city, panic buying shorts, seeing an SP hat in the Japanese grocer, cooking for myself again. Can’t stop working……. why stop when it feels like play??? Went to a Mets game, had a blast, thought about the human desire for ritual/ceremony/theatre, and how religion or the monarchy scratch this itch at various times in history, and how elaborately ritualistic and beautiful sports like baseball also hold it down. Went to Carbone for the first time in years last night and had the same feeling, beyond how delicious the food is the real thing that enchants people is the service, how it’s theatre, how in these grim times we all just love a little magic trick. Doing heavier deadlifts. Haven’t discussed getting stronger, I’ve always seen the gym as this thing I just haul myself through in order to do my job, but have recently realised I actually love it in a kooky way. I feel specifically like a human being (and not a computer/animal/supernatural entity commonly found in folklore) picking heavy things up and putting them down, I really think building muscle is one of the best things you can do for your body image and sense of physical accomplishment. Reading Vivian Gornick’s The Odd Woman and the City and Anne Boyer’s Garments Against Women, both of which my mum brought me mid-tour, could she have better taste in books no she could not, thanks mum. Trying to find a secondhand copy of Four Screenplays of Ingmar Bergman, also Manet and his Critics. Obsessed with music again and listening to it all the time, not telling you what though, hihi huhu.

Taken by one of you, apologies for no credit, love it

Growing out my unibrow as an entry point for playing with conventions of beauty/gender/form. I was at the Walter Sickert show, in the room which is just his paintings of nude women. The shock my brain got seeing these not particularly idealised versions of the female form shocked ME. I realised my brain is getting programmed to want what the algorithms want when it comes to female physical form, just by sheer exposure to these systems and the current beauty standards. The algorithm doesn’t want to see certain things, and therefore I’ve stopped looking for them, if that makes sense. It sounds soooo obvious, but I realised, like, fuck if I’m not careful I’m just gonna end up striving for conventional (albeit alternative/chic) hotness until I die. And wouldn’t that be…. kind of a waste??? To have this incredible canvas or raw tool that can be manipulated to such great effect, and to only use it to try to… titillate and appeal? In the same way I eat bitter greens or dank fermented foods, going to make an effort to incorporate different flavours when it comes to form. Incorporate the grotesque, the masc, the statuesque, the jacked, the magnificent. Call it “refusing to believe that’s all there is to a fire". Okay, some life dispatches in photo form.

Hot girl munchies… greenmarket is going crazy rn… kuku with kewpie one of the crazier but sicker things to emerge from this brain.

The acne is active but the fits are cute

God tier snack… that’s all I’ll say….

Glasto by Lauren

Some snaps from Oslo/Stockholm… god damn it was beautiful

Turtle pond in Central Park

Everyone who was at Ally Pally, I wanna say thank you — you guys raised over $33k USD for the Brigid Alliance, thank you so much for that, I’m really grateful. I felt really supported at that show too, I was feeling really emotional about Roe v Wade, felt special being able to kick and rage and sweat it out with you.

Last thing: Really enjoyed this profile of Yuval Sharon, who makes me want to get into opera. “I wanted it to feel like Japanese calligraphy, where you can’t remove your brush from the page,” he said in a talk before the show. “That’s what I’d like this production to feel like: one brush stroke, quick. Like being young.” I’ll drink to that. Love you. Stay cool. E

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SOLSTICE

(21/06/2022) (Solar Institute Bulletin No. 16) (From Cologne)

Photo by Sonja Yelich

Kia ora koutou e te whānau, I’m writing this to you from Croatia, looking out at the Adriatic Sea. I jumped into it for the first time today, next to my dad. He and Mum are here to watch me play at a castle on a clifftop in Sibenik tonight. When I was booking this tour, the only thing I insisted on was that I had to play in Ireland and Croatia, where my families are from. I’m really moved to be here tonight, and a little overwhelmed to be making these connections, going deeper into what I’m made of. The water here is deep and clear, and leaping into it felt like coming home. Happy solstice to you. If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, I hope you can swim, or lie in some grass, or go for a walk. I hope you’re taking a moment to feel the sun on your body and tune in to the invisible rhythms that propel our world. This week also marks the beginning of Matariki, or Māori New Year. The Matariki star cluster appears in Southern Hemisphere skies this week, giving us a chance to look back on the year that was and start to envision the one ahead. Starting this year, Matariki has officially been recognised as a national holiday at home, which is awesome. I’m bummed I’m not there — I’d be getting up in the dark, packing a little brekkie for a few of us and going to sit up on Maungauika to see the girls. Do it for me, please.

It’s been a year since I announced the release of Solar Power. I can honestly say it has been the year with the highest highs and lowest lows I think I’ve ever experienced. It took people awhile to get the album — I still get emails every day from people who are just coming around to it now! — and that response was really confounding and at times painful to sit with at first. I learnt a ton about myself and how I’m perceived by making and releasing this album, and I feel significantly more connected and alive in my art practice and life than pretty much ever before. Sounds dry but it’s true!!! It’s been interesting as the year has progressed taking in works of art (movies, albums, TV shows, visual art) made in and around the pandemic, and feeling like most of them have a greater degree of interiority than others made by that artist before. You already know about my belief that artists work to metabolise collective feeling, and it makes sense to me that when the collective feeling of the past few years has consisted of long stretches of isolation, vulnerability, abject terror and existential questioning, those feelings would be reflected in the art of the times. I was sitting with a friend recently drinking chai at a country house in England, she’s an artist too, and we got on to the topic of the album somehow. She said, it’s clearly one of those works that gets made between peaks, the kind that’s necessary for makers sometimes, no less precious, in fact, there can’t be peaks at all without such works. I think this is true of the record. I needed to go low, to roll a neon ball through tall grass and see what happened. Playing songs from SP live each night in what is undoubtedly my best live show ever is also an incredible feeling — it all makes sense there, both to you and me, in a new and vivid way. And thanks to SP, I’ve been able to work through some big personal stuff that was making it pretty difficult for me to do stuff like travel or play shows without getting completely overwhelmed. I used to sit alone in my hotel room on show days, binge watching Bake Off, Ambien and Vitamin D on the bedside, my skin pale, my stomach knotted in fear. These days, I’m out the door in every city, walking for miles, eating gelato after dark, finding tiny wine bars, trying on vintage clothes down secret streets, laughing with friends, and playing better and better shows for you as a result. So yeah. Thankyou for all of it.

On the occasion of the solstice, I wanted to share a sixth video with you, for THE PATH. This video is the first chapter in the mystical Solar Power story, a prequel to the title video. You see my character joining her friends and family on the island where they’ve chosen to start life anew, arriving in her trademark suit and quickly being transformed by nature’s strange magic. I’m so proud of my buds for learning the dance in this one. Hope you like it. We made a couple new pieces for you, up in the merch store now. These might be some of my favourite pieces we’ve made, actually. Cop if you feel like it!!!

Institute members, please ensure you have read the latest report from the field. Some moments from the past few weeks:

Your sun seeker at Lake Garda yesterday.

Primavera — fuck, this was soooooo fuckin fun. Some more pics from it, and Barcelona.

Me with a whole squid at El Pollo.

Perfect pizza from Panificio Bonci in Rome, and being a tourist for the day. At long last, reunited with almond granita.

Legit every crowd is so special, I come offstage and write notes about you, your outfits and makeup and the way you look into my eyes. 

That’s all for now. Next time I write, I’ll have played at a castle in Croatia. Your girl, L xxxxxxxxx PS. To whoever gave security the ring to give to me in Verona, I haven’t taken it off. Thankyou ❤️

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THE STARS OF OUR SHOW

(05/06/2022) (Solar Institute Bulletin No. 15) (From Dublin)

Hello, Hello, We are seven shows in to the EU/UK tour. I’m in the car driving to our final night in London, our sixth show in seven days. Starting to feel like I’m on a big bender, even though all I do is play for you and then go eat my fish and green beans. My body is both stronger and more tender every day. And it’s from this zone of fragility that I write to you, after looking through Lauren’s pics from the last few days. I cannot overstate how blown away and grateful and emotional your presence at these shows is making me. I knew we would have fun. I knew we would dance. I knew I’d see some familiar faces. But I could never have anticipated just how much dedication, passion, encyclopaedic knowledge, immense care (for me and one another) and buck wild joy you would bring every. single. night. You infect me with your energy and make me jump higher, sing louder, find new colours in material I’ve been performing for almost a decade. In the years since I last played for you, our little corner of the world has gotten infinitely more vivid. The way you sing certain lyrics extra loud (I’M NINETEEN AND I’M ON FIRE-core!!!!!), or the way you listen so intently when I talk. The way you’re completely game for a show that isn’t a typical one, that requires focus and patience before shit gets wild. You are the fuel that makes the rocket take off. You are the stars of our show. I am always grateful for you, but never more so than right now, seeing how you’re showing up for these nights we have together. Your love is having a profound impact on me. You are giving me access to an energy that’s gonna sustain me for a long, long time, not just the kind that transfers from audience to performer, but from human being to human being. Thankyou. Some pics from outside the Roundhouse.

Some of the many, many front row angels — I truly spend the whole show looking at you and blissing out on how gorgeous you are.

Calum and his friends have been a permanent fixture on the barrier so far. They don’t know how happy it makes me seeing them. Here’s him from the other night.

A few of me.

This note is addressed to anyone who’s attended a show on this tour so far, on either continent, you’re all my stars. Just a short note this time. Have to go rehearse a few things, choose outfits, eat something. Speak again soon.

E/L/L/A XxOxOxxOxX

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A FINGER POINTING AT THE MOON

(24/05/2022) (Solar Institute Bulletin No. 14) (From Leeds)

5 minutes post show, taking it all off 

Bonjourrrrrrrr to all the cuties in my e address book!!!!!!! It’s been two weeks and two days since the final curtain fell in the U.S. Feels both like ages ago and yesterday. I lay around in Santa Barbara for a few days after everyone went back, complete solitude feeling bizarro after five weeks of bus life, walking along the beach deep in thought about you. I can’t get over how generous and loving and supportive an audience you were each night. I’ve honestly never had such a good touring experience. I met Annie-B for a drink in New York and she kept talking about what she called the chanting, all of you singing every word of every song with me, it isn’t normal, all my colleagues whose first tour with us it is are in disbelief like, they really know EVERY word. You do. I’m so lucky to have you. Thankyou for coming — I’ll come again as soon as you’ll have me.

Some of Lauren’s pics from the last couple days — our first outdoor SP show 🌙😮‍💨

In the break, my priority was to rest. Two nasty sicknesses in two weeks and a gross wet cough hanging around, had to dry it out, get better for you. I didn’t fully rest, if I’m honest, there’s a fire lit under me at the moment, did some secret things in NY and LA for a week or so before getting to London last week. I get fucked by the jet lag coming this way every time, so I decided to be nice to myself for a change and fly a week early. I got in at midday, sun shining, arrived at the hotel feeling nauseous and corpse-adjacent, but I grabbed a sugar free Red Bull (it makes no sense to me that caffeine-wise I cannot drink so much as a strong black tea yet a RB gives me jitterless wings, deeply off brand but leaning in) and got on the move, walking fast, music in my ears, feeling this fizz of excitement growing being back in London finally after 3 (!!) years. I honestly had one of the best afternoons I’ve had all year, just walking with music loud in my headphones, the same thing I’ve been doing since I was a teen, still feeling as good as it ever did. Spent days like this, blissing out on the very specific UK energy of people in pubs, people playing football or sprawling out in the parks, a boy flying past me on a bike screaming “YASS METHOD ACTING” at dusk on a Wednesday, smoked mackerel salad at Cafe Deco. So happy to be stepping over British gobs of spit once more.

Jetlagged but joyful in london, a little magic trip out of town, before that 3 days in NY, bought this Balenciaga shirt what do u think

Me in Paris…. The ORIGINAL ‘can u reach me?’ queen

I’m feeling really good, really open. Possibility all around. Puuuumped for Europe. Can’t believe I’ll be seeing you all again, so special coming to your cities, each one so different and offering us so much in the way of food, art, language. Gonna try to sightsee as much as I can.I think you’re gonna fall in love with Marlon. If you haven’t heard his music before, start with Come To Me, Nobody Gets What They Want Anymore, his new song My Boy, Dark Child, and Vampire Again. Few tickets left for these shows.

THE RUMOURS ARE TRUE…………….IN VERY EXCITING NEWS WE ARE COMING TO MEXICO IN OCTOBER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Our shows are in Mexico City, Guadalajara and Monterrey, and it would mean the world to me if you came!!! I adore playing in Mexico, and I’m so happy this is happening…. Think I’m gonna add some special mx-only setlist moments… watch this space… The tickets go onsale Monday May 30 at 11am your time, and the presale code is strangeairlines Reading Fleur Jaeggy’s Sweet Days Of Discipline, Ernaux’s A Girl’s Story, Saunders’ A Swim In a Pond In the Rain, which I bought when it came out and didn’t get round to but a friend is currently reading it and inspired me to get it out. Lauren gave me Shine Bright: A Very Personal History of Black Women in Pop by Danyel Smith which I’m hyped to hit next. VERY happy that Elif Batuman has released Either/Or, the follow-up to The Idiot, which you may remember me recommending previously. Suitcase is basically full of books at this point. I’m loving Kendrick. I cannot get over the most popular and influential artist in modern music displaying a working nervous system, admitting mistakes, trying to process intergenerational trauma and prejudice. I love the way the album opens, the pace and heat of the first few songs, and later Count Me Out, the build and strings in Auntie Diaries … special.

Checking in on my SCsWWtS… Look at Katia’s sunshine caprese, and Connor’s focaccia. SP as food is really a zone of great delight to me— always send these to Ophelia. 

Check out Alexander’s server who is a DEAD RINGER FOR ME????? 

Love seeing Seth’s merch on the beach — please send me pics of merch in nature this summer, I really love seeing it. Should add that i forgot to pack a cap on this trip and am wearing this cap every fucking day, kind of embarrassing, if you have an old cap you are parting with and think i’d like send me an email hahaha

Ash’s gorgeous tattoo, and a sliver of her Melo one above. 

DEVON CAME TO ELEVEN SHOWS ON THE U.S. RUN, THAT MUST BE SOME KIND OF RECORD, THANKYOU DEVON I AM NOT WORTHY!!! Alright, that’s all for now….. Leaving you with a paragraph from this brilliant New Yorker essay on parenting by Jia that’s staying with me: “The work demanded creativity and intuition: spending a day alone with my infant daughter reminded me of shepherding a friend through a first-time acid trip, continually gauging whether she needed to look at a flower, or listen to music, or sob for ten minutes, or be alone in the dark.” Can’t wait to be shepherding each other again in a few days. Loving you, always, forever, L xxxxxxx

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meet you by the piano?

(25/04/2022) (Solar Institute Bulletin No. 13) (From Minneapolis)

Hello hello hello. Writing this backstage after soundcheck in Minneapolis. Am firmly entrenched in the rhythms of tour life— wake up at 11am, do some work or drink a tea in bed or go to the gym, then drift in to soundcheck in another beautiful venue with columns and gilt and a cloud-painted ceiling. Sit alone for a while after that, steam voice, do some skincare, embroider or read, soon start to feel show night momentum build all around. Walkie-talkies buzzing to each other, house music going on, Remi’s set wafting up the stairs. Sitting in glam, being transformed somehow from someone with eye bags and active acne to… something shiny. In to the band to sing, then to the stage, in the wings, that feeling of waiting in the wings so imprinted from childhood, always the same open feeling, giving oneself over to what’s about to happen. Which always feels like it’s over in a second, blink and I’m running back down the hall to my room, where I’ll leave the gears on the floor in a pile, and head to the bathroom to wash the glittery paint from my face.

Since I last wrote, we’ve played two shows in Boston, two in New York, one in Philadelphia, and two in Chicago. I’m sorry about Uncasville and D.C. Felt the throat thing start to scratch and then open out to a full searing burn, heard notes that were easy to sing the night before disappear. Was reminded of the Sylvia Plath poem — “And now you try / Your handful of notes; / The clear vowels rise like balloons.” If only. But we’ll come to you in August, and you know now we’re gonna make those shows psychotically special to say thankyou for your patience. Now I’m feeling tip top good, there are eight shows left on this crazy run, I’m gonna be a sad girl when it ends. Some recent Lauren pictures I love: (NB: PUT SOME RADIO CITY PICS ON INSTAGRAM TOO)

Especially loving her pictures of you guys.

Other things… Eating a lot of Fishwife sardines (much to the chagrin of my entire tour bus), ordering expensive underwear in the middle of the night, sending txts with invisible ink, trying to resist microtrends but looking up miniskirts, feeling my body getting tour strong, feeling comfortable under the lights. Listening to new Empress Of and Chelsea Jade and this amazing Pa Salieu song that I missed somehow in 2020. Read Sea of Tranquility and Time Is A Mother and now rereading a favourite Lucia Berlin collection that made me realise I really gotta go to New Mexico. Dying to see this. Staying up til 3am writing a maybe amazing early Drake style monologue in the hotel room in Toronto, adding new songs to the setlist on the fly, putting stuff in the calendar for six months from now. Plotting, scheming. Loving you.

Music, by Antonina Leonardovna Rzhevskaya

1:01am in the bus leaving Chicago

Beautiful letter by C. Getting annihilated by your letters to me. I’m thinking I should put a box at the merch desk or something to collect your notes??? I fully treasure each one and hate to think of missing any…

Daily routine of a setlist deviator

Your little rat in custom Prada, can you believe it, it’s all too much.

E xxxxxxo

(source: received this email)

[lordeemailarchive]

WEEK ONE

(12/04/2022) (Solar Institute Bulletin No. 12) (From Boston)

Your girl, early April

Bonjour bebes, Nashville, Detroit, Montreal, Toronto 1 + 2. We are now FIVE shows in to the Solar Power Tour! This first week… has been super. special. I don’t think I realised what was out there waiting for me. The sheer force of love I feel from you every night, the actual physical feeling of all your voices shimmering towards me through the air like a giant tidal wave, it’s wiiiiiild. I don’t think I realised, back when we booked these more intimate shows, just HOW psycho the feeling in the room would be. And my stage fright is barely a factor now — I just feel calm, keen to hang with you for an hour and a half. I used to come offstage and feel like I had stepped from one planet onto another, the adrenaline spike being so massive, the fear response I’d had to counteract so immense. I’d have to chew a gummy or drink a tequila just to come down a little bit. That feels different now, more manageable, more on my terms. I always come off and write down a few details about the people I see in the first couple rows — someone in a sun costume, someone in old merch, someone with beautiful eye makeup, someone who’s hype the entire time, someone who barely sings a word but is completely focused. I’m grateful for you all. Had a late night tour through the largest Masonic temple in the world, an unfinished basement swimming pool and a dozen gilded rooms; walked around Belle Isle and the Toronto waterfront and Centennial Park, staring at cherry blossoms. I’ve been eating pretty healthy, haven’t yet descended into the inevitable post-show stoner pizza routine (although u knowwww it’s coming), want to be my most tip top for you, for these nights, they’re too special to be anything less than fully here for. Here’s some pics from the first week of tour, taken by the lovely Lauren. 

Montreal soundcheck. Loving being on this stage we conceptualised so many months ago — it’s our abstracted take on a sundial. I wanted it to feel hewn from sandy stone, to feel almost naturally occurring. Had been looking a lot at Noguchi forms too, the feeling of paper with light shining through it, together with the stone equal parts permanent and temporal, a perfect platform for a band of eerie worshippers of the natural world. 

Warming up.

Me.

You!!!!!!

The band.

Aftermath.

Aftermath :pppppppppp

What else? Not much else right now, tbh. Just you. I’m rereading Leaving the Atocha Station for comfort, just read a sick story collection by Kate Folk, v Kelly Link. I also picked up The Copenhagen trilogy. Need to get my hands on Time Is A Mother. I got halfway through my first Nancy Meyers movie the other night (Something’s Gotta Give) which is honestly pretty good for me, serial under watcher of movies, I was into it! I’m burning Tomato Leaves by Loewe, wearing Black Citrus by Vilhelm Fragrances (purchased especially for this tour, always good to delineate), you know I ate an All-Dressed chip in Canada, still drinking the really yummy chai with the whole green cardamom pods, embroidering stuff occasionally, panicking less. Love you so, so much. Can’t wait to see you. 

xxxxxo L/E/sometimes/always L, sometimes/always E, always/always yours

(source: received this email)

[lordeemailarchive]

Bud

(22/03/2022) (Solar Institute Bulletin No. 11) (From New York City)

Anaïs Nin’s house, Silverlake

Oh helloooooo. So nice to be writing you a note again in the Year of the Tiger. Did you miss me? I missed u 🥺 and I have looooads to catch you up on.

Summer in a few pics .. Note baby bro’s SP tee hanging on porch to dry .. Full circle 🔗

So, firstly, a personal update from the desk of My Spirit… I’m feeling really good, you guys. Something has shifted. I went home and chilled out and swam three times as day, yada yada you know how this goes, but I’ve emerged feeling not just back to normal, but hungry. Curious. Full of zest and energy. I’m walking around the city looking at young people, watching them move, feeling like a young person again myself. I feel more connected to and excited by popular culture than I have in years, and excited to be a part of it again. I never really thought about how what happens when the fun thing you love most becomes the way you earn money/respect/attention, when an element of duty creeps in to this thing that was once totally pure and silly. I guess I needed to reset my relationship to it all a bit, and I cannot even tell you how amazing it feels to have done so. I’m a bud. Right in time for spring. Groundbreaking.

Of course it’s the spring solstice today, so to celebrate, I thought I should give you a new video, the one for SECRETS FROM A GIRL (WHO’S SEEN IT ALL).

I’ve said before that this song is me in communication with another version of me, trying to send along the wisdom I’ve started to gather along the way. When we were plotting the video, Joel brought up some old film/TV tropes about groupings of women. It inspired me to identify three distinct parts of myself, and imagine what would happen if these parts were able to meet… and also be in an early-2000s style girl group music video together?! I loved conceptualising and performing this - the Child in her purple lipstick and silver jewellery, big curls thrown over to one side, skipping and bouncing like I did as a six year old; the Lover, a baby woman in red with a little diamanté eye, waking up hungover and divine; and the Gardener, me at my wisest and most crunchy, dressed in my own clothes (shout out Fran for the sunflower top gift, eagle eyed fans may have spotted this before) and watching the other mes with a benevolent, amused eye. I hope you love it. Loving how this zone of excitement is coinciding with the beginning of the Solar Power Tour, which we’re in the process of building for you right now. I don’t wanna gas myself too much, but you’re gonna shit. your fuckin. pants. It’s so good. I can’t wait to see you, to have our couple hours together where we catch up. It’s gonna be really special.

Speaking of tour, we have added a show in NORWAY! (pre-sale code: strangeairlines) I’m psyched about this — the last time I was in Norway I was battling this gnarly bronchial thing, I remember this hot doctor came and prescribed me a steroid inhaler, it was at that level… I was nervous because some of the Norwegian royal family were in attendance, which felt so absurd and surreal, and yeah, I couldn’t really breathe during the show because of the infection, which made my already heightened stage fright compound… Jake took this amazing photo of me looking so serene, but in actual fact I got into this position to try send blood back into my head, because I genuinely thought I was gonna pass out… hence “dutifully falling apart for the princess of Norway” In TMWTA. Situations like that are part of why I needed a big reset after Melo, I had pushed my sensitive little body to the limit. Absolutely no regrets it was basically worth it. I remember really loving playing to a Norwegian crowd, so I can’t wait to be back with you in full health to fuck it up. Some other shows have been added…….. but not yet announced……… in some of my favourite cities to play in the ENTIRE WORLD………. watch this space :):):):):) Oh, we also added a couple things to the merch store, some new colourways to tide you over ’til tour merch, which is honestly scarily good… I know some people think this is goofy but I’m definitely gonna wear it, I love wearing my own merch, it’s like the t-shirts I used to make at high school using Sharpies, but …professionally printed??? What’s not to love?? What else? I’ve listened to the Rosalía album every day since it came out, fuck, it’s so good, I gagged when I heard that interpolation of Archangel, Hentai is genius, Sakura… projects like this remind me why I live for pop music — at its best, there’s nothing better. Just finished The Idiot by Elif Batuman, which I bought when it came out but remained suspicious of for several years… sometimes if a book is too ‘buzzy’ I decide it’s overhyped and maybe sucks??…why do I do this??….It’s FANTASTIC, you should read it, I kept reading it in public places and laughing out loud. Also recently read Cleanness by Garth Greenwell which I adored. For fans of Ben Lerner or anyone seeking out particularly sensitive exquisite queer fiction. Bought some earrings from Justine Clenquet (you know I’m feeling like a young person when my earring purchase doesn’t look like that of a 62 year old Eastern European woman with an apartment in Paris…). Can’t get enough of kumquats, the bagna cauda at Lodi, people in parks.

The fingers are cold but the heart is happy

Different mode, vacation papi a couple weeks ago

More soon. I look forward to sending regular emails of tour photo dumps, dispatches from the road, updates on my various craft projects, and more. Love you, so much. Thanks for putting up with my bullshit for all these years. Working my ass off to make it worth it every day. Lots and lots of love, E xxxxxxxxx PS. Like all of you, I have been following the ongoing news of the attacks on Ukraine with a heavy heart. To any Ukrainian friends reading this, I don’t have the words to express my sympathy and outrage at your situation, or the perspective and experience to comprehend your pain, but know that I’m thinking of you, I’m donating, and I’m always here.

(source: received this email)

[lordeemailarchive]

A LOVE LETTER ON THE SOLSTICE

(22/12/2021) (Solar Institute Bulletin No. 10) (From Auckland)

Can u reach me? U know the answer….!

Kia ora angels. By some stroke of good fortune, I made it home for Christmas this year, which means I can say “Happy Summer Solstice”, and mean it. It feels unbelievable to be warm again. I’ve been swimming most days, and my skin is maaarginally less oat milk coloured than it was on that last freezing day in New York. Been thinking a lot about last summer, when I was finishing the album and feeling invincible, coming out of a couple quiet years ready to bite down hard. Some years I go into feeling like I’ve got it somewhat figured out. My hand’s on the wheel of my relationships, dreams and desires. I recognise myself. And then, eeeeeeerk, I’m swerving, seventeen again, a tangle of cells getting owned by every teachable moment. But what I love about really tuning in to the seasons is it gives you the understanding that everything moves on through. The flowers will bud and burst and die. Equilibriums will be found. Shit will ease off. And before you know it, you’ve made it through a freaky year feeling genuine excitement for all that the next is gonna bring. It’s the summer solstice today. All day in my brain there’s a secret festival going on. I always try to go outside early in the morning, really take the time to appreciate the longest day, knowing the shortest is gonna take its place sometime soon. According to Apple, on this day in 2018 I was discovering Hilma af Klimt:

In 2020, my cucumbers looked like this:

And apparently I saved this meme:

So you know, special moments all round.

Solstices should always have offerings. So for you, here’s the LEADER OF A NEW REGIME video. Just a couple of bites, a feeling, a perfect midpoint in the SP journey. I hope you like it.

But that’s not all! We also whipped up a SPECIAL LIMITED EDITION POSTER, just for you. The merch people wanted it to be $30 but I said it had to be $15. Thought it would be a nice addition to your walls, if you want that. I’ll take it down from the store in a week or so.

What else? I’ve asked for these books for Christmas. I finally read No One Is Talking About This after everyone recommending it to me all year, and I’m so, so happy I did. Please, please read this book. I made/kind of made up these really good cookies, the recipe for which is written out here (adapted from Rachel Roddy’s amaretti):

Oh, can I just say— been looking at pics from the last tour, and I cannot fucking wait to get back out in front of you this year, in all these beautiful venues, bring you this amazing show we’re building. Jesus, I’ve missed it. It’s time. I am so stupid grateful for you all. Thankyou, from the bottom of my heart, for caring about me. It’ll never, ever get taken for granted. I hope you have a safe holiday. I hope you can find moments of beauty. I hope you can rest. I’m gonna disappear. There’s a bit of beach with my name on it, a Negroni to drink. The years go in circles, and I’m finally starting to get it. See you really soon — IRL!!!!!!!!!!!!??

Me at the end of 2021, harried but snatched, mask on, infamous sunglasses still in hand, hyped 2 feed u in the new year :~)

Carving my initials on your forehead, E xxxxxxxxx

(source: received this email)

[lordeemailarchive]

(from admin) Hi!

Welcome to Lorde’s Email Archive! Here you’ll find all of the emails Lorde has sent through the years (or at least the ones I’ve gotten the hold of). As of now, I think all of her emails have been posted, but if you think that’s not true, do not hesitate on using the ‘tips here!’ section if you have any info you’d like to contribute, or any kind message really!

Hope you all enjoy this!

A fellow Lorde fan ♡

p.s. : también hablo español!

[lordeemailarchive]

:-(

EXCLUSIVE EMAIL TO FANS IN OCEANIA

(10/11/2021) (Solar Institute Bulletin No. 9.5) (From New York City)

Hello sweet ones, So you may have heard by now about the postponement of the Australia and NZ Solar Power shows. No words can tell you how gutted I am by this. The reality of a developing COVID management system in both countries just means there’s too much uncertainty for the promoters to feel confident we wouldn’t be at risk of last-minute show cancellations due to possible lockdowns. I’m well aware (and hopeful) restrictions could be stable and workable by February, but we don’t know that for sure, and the pressure was on to make a decision so our crew could find other work and our venues and promoters could properly re-book our shows. This is not me being a flake, this is not me being pregnant (you dweebs it was a EUPHEMISM I’M NOT PREGNANT HAHA), this is me and the whole team who planned this tour being no match for a really complex public health situation. I am absolutely devastated to let you down. I feel physically ill typing this. I wanted so badly to be the light at the end of this lockdown hell tunnel for you guys. I think about gorgeous angels like Courtney in NZ, or Josiah and Maddie in Australia, people who have been there supporting me since the beginning, people who have tickets and accommodation plans already, and my stomach just drops. I hope you know how deeply I value your commitment to me as an artist, and the relationships we all have, and I’d NEVER take them for granted. Please know that if there’d been ANY way to avoid this, I would have. Some slightly brighter news: We’ve been able to add second shows in Wellington, Brisbane and Perth so that’s sick! That presale is available Wednesday using strangeairlines as your special code. And some wider tour news: I’m very jazzed to announce that I’m taking the delicious Remi Wolf on the US tour. I absolutely adore Remi’s buzzy smart pop tunes and you should definitely listen to her a lot in preparation. I first was introduced to her via my bandmate Jimmy who played ‘Shawty’ at every party one summer, but her recent EP and new album Juno slap also. And in Europe and the UK, the magnificent Marlon Williams will be joining us!!!!! Marlon is basically God’s gift to ears and also a really great hang and super funny. He’s a towering presence live, he’s gonna fuck you up and also make you fall in love… because have you seen him… We’re partial to singing together when we can so you might be treated to an impromptu song or two. We still haven’t chosen the Aus and NZ supports, partly because of the developing situation. I am hard in the brainstorm zone… Email me if you think of anyone who would be rad, but I promise to bring you some amazing openers in ‘23. Anyway. I hope you can understand the shitty situation. It’s ok if you’re mad at me, I’m mad at me too. Just know I did everything I could. The new dates are in full below. I’ll see you there, Ella xxxxxxxxx

(source: forwarded email by u/Glittering_Feeling45)