Grimes Teases First Album in Over Six Years, ‘Psy Opera’

Grimes has returned — sort of.

The Canadian avant-garde artist has started teasing her new album, titled Psy Opera. It has yet to be given a release date.

She shared the news in a profile with Interview Magazine, in conversation with sci-fi author Nnedi Okorafor, who reportedly heard the entire album — or what’s complete — before their interview. Grimes shared that the album is a “work-in-progress” which emerged following a period where she stepped away from music for a brief period.

“I totally quit music,” she says. “Everything I’d been going through with the public and my personal life and having kids, I was like, ‘I’m just going to be a stay-at-home mom. Screw this.’” Last year, Grimes shared two unreleased demos while asking the public to "stop posting images of [her] kid everywhere."

Notably, Grimes was in a highly documented relationship with controversial billionaire Elon Musk. While the pair separated in 2022, they have three children together, including X Æ A-12, which was later changed to X Æ A-Xii, since the former name violated California regulations — and additionally caused a lot of confusion on the internet.

Grimes continues: “I couldn’t listen to music without getting PTSD. I was only interested in writing and reading.” Her comeback to music came through writing poetry, then lyrics. She was pulled back into the recording studio when she was asked to write a rap song for an unnamed K-pop artist, but stayed to keep working on her own material.

She notes that the initial sounds of Psy Opera were “violently aggressive” from “going through various stages of nihilism and vengefulness.” As it stands, the magazine has described the album as a mix of “poetry, rap and an irresistible pull towards pop.”

One track she discussed, “The Light Ages,” reflects her ongoing fixation on technology, the rise of AI and human fragility. The song details her complex thoughts on how “human life is very frail and time is very long,” and what might come after. It includes the line: "When human hearts cease to beat, your story I will write.”

On the topic of AI, Grimes clarifies that while she has experimented with generative AI, she hasn’t used it in her music, but rather her physical art.

“I actually don’t use it in my music. People have really misunderstood me here,” she confirms. “I kind of have a side quest where I obsessively make Midjourney stuff, but it’s not professional,” referencing the AI art generator.

She further explains her stance on the topic, exercising a blasé attitude towards other artists using her AI voice and personality in their music: “I was like, “Whatever, use my voice, you can be Grimes. I’ll do a revenue share and all publishing splits can go 50-50 with fans on blockchain,” she says. “I think copyright is important, but I also think there’s ways in which it can totally change.”

Another track, "Eve Is Online,” was mentioned in the article, and includes a quote from Donna Jeanne Haraway's 1985 essay, A Cyborg Manifesto: "The cyborg will not recognize the Garden of Eden,” which Grimes calls “a banger.”

Speaking of artificial things, the album’s title is a pun on the word psyops, a military term popularized by online conspiracy theorists. In recent months, it has become a hot topic in the music industry. Last week, buzzy New York band Geese made headlines after they were accused of being a psyop due to their album marketing strategy.

Psy Opera is the latest in a series of punny Grimes album names, following 2020’s Miss Anthropocene (mashing up "misanthrope," "Anthropocene" and beauty pageant titles). That album debuted at No. 31 on the Billboard Canadian Albums chart, remaining on the ranking for one week.

Read the full interview here.