Grimes has released the first video for her upcoming album, Art Angels — and at a sprawling 6:51 minutes, it sees the musician dressed up as just about everything…everywhere. The video covers two songs off the new album, starting with extremely danceable — and almost exuberant(?) — “Flesh, Without Blood,” and moving into the hazy “Life in the Vivid Dream.” Unlike you — who will likely wear one Halloween costume — it seems Grimes has used releasing a music video as a valid excuse to be indecisive about the ornate, gory kitsch she chooses to sport. (She’d initially described the characters in The Fader as alter egos that make up an imaginary girl band).
Grimes played essentially every role in the making of this video, as well: from director to writer to editor to art director. The cinematography and creative consulting were carried out by her brother, Mac Boucher. Lastly, the styling was done by TURNER.
In the rambunctious costume parade of the first half of the video, we see Grimes as a Disney-fied Marie Antoinette w/ parasol and knife wound in a basketball court, a wild-eyed angel who also eventually bears a knife wound, a face-painted futuristic gamer, and, perhaps least intriguingly, a tuxedoed dinner-partier. She plays the same characters in the second half of the video; however, in keeping with the music, they’re just a little calmer. They’re also still bleeding out from those pesky knife wounds.
Art Angels will be released on November 6 digitally, and physically on December 11. Check out the track list (which features a song with Janelle Monae), over at Pitchfork.