Lorde Celebrates Her 18th Birthday With The ‘Yellow Flicker Beat’ Video

To celebrate her 18th birthday, Lorde has unveiled the video for her latest track Yellow Flicker Beat, just one of her contributions to the Hunger Games: Mockingjay soundtrack she’s curating herself.

The singer last night teased the release of the video on Twitter. “I am going to release the yellow flicker beat music video at 6am EST, which in new zealand is when the clocks tick over and i turn eighteen,” she said. “This is my eighteenth birthday present from me to you.”

The track is the first original piece of work released by the Kiwi star since she took the world by storm with her debut album, Pure Heroine, last year. The dark and brooding video sees the star singing to camera in a variety of different, yet equally isolating locations, including a dimly lit, seedy motel room, a dark and empty kitchen, a deserted road, some kind of warehouse and, you know, a black tie function.

The chorus’ pounding beats and oscillating, siren-like synths are visually punctuated here by Lorde’s distinctive dancing, erratically flailing her limbs and flipping her hair in a manner familiar anyone who has seen the 18-year-old perform live will be familiar with.

Lorde first shared the track back in September, reflecting in a blog post at the time on a very big year and a very significant anniversary. “I’m reminded of this day last year, when pure heroine came out in this country. the feeling of something very solitary that i had worked on spinning around and around further away from me, becoming someone else’s, everyone’s.”

Lorde has in fact contributed to three songs on the soundtrack she’s curating, including a track with Pusha T, Q-Tip and Haim on Stromae’s Meltdown and on This Is Not A Game, a collaboration between herself, singer Miguel and electronic kingpins The Chemical Brothers. Interestingly, Kanye West will also feature on the project via a reworking of Lorde’s Yellow Flicker Beat.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1 soundtrack is due to be released on Friday, 14th November. See the video for one of Lorde’s contribution below.

Watch: Lorde – Yellow Flicker Beat

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