Grimes has released two tracks from her upcoming album Art Angels, the hotly-anticipated follow-up to her 2012 breakout album Visions. Presented together as a two-track extended video, Flesh Without Blood and Life in the Vivid Dream the film sees Boucher shape shift between a bloodied, fallen angel on a hillside, an acid bright Marie Antoinette on a pink badminton court, a lounge-dwelling Tony Montana figure and a gaming goth, flanked by her friends Eyeball Bambi, Equestrian Steve and Tallulah Fontaine “as themselves” according to the credits. The film was written, directed, edited, colored and art directed by Grimes, with cinematography and a creative consultant credit going to her brother, Mac Boucher.
Flesh Without Blood is a big, layered pop production, but of course, it’s not purely confection. Lyrics about falling out of love are interspersed with vague threats: “You claw, you fight, you lose / Got a doll that looks just like you.” Despite the title, there really is a lot of blood. Back in May, Boucher promised that the new album would be “mostly real instruments” and this is clearly evident on Life in the Vivid Dream, which features an acoustic guitar throughout, as well as a piano and wind instruments.
The full tracklist for Art Angels has also been released, revealing the exciting news that Grimes has collaborated with Janelle Monáe on the track Venus Fly and Taiwanese rapper Aristophanes on SCREAM, live footage of which was uploaded by a fan yesterday. It also confirms that Realiti, a track from an album Grimes scrapped because it “sucked” has been salvaged and appears on Art Angels.
Check out the full tracklist below:
Laughing and not being normal
California
SCREAM (featuring Aristophanes)
Flesh Without Blood
Belly of the beat
Kill V. Maim
Artangels
Easily
Pin
Realiti
World Princess part II
Venus Fly (featuring Janelle Monáe)
Life in the Vivid Dream
Butterfly
Art Angels will be released digitally on November 6 on 4AD.