Grimes has released her much-anticipated collaboration with British DJ and producer Chris Lake – as the debut single of her AI girl group, NPC.
The project was initially teased as part of the lineup for Splendour XR, as ‘Grimes Metaverse (Super Beta)’.
This was around the same time she was on TikTok claiming AI was “the fastest path to communism.”
According to a NPC press release, the virtual group will hone concepts from Grimes’ previous albums, 2015’s Art Angels and 2020’s Miss Anthropocene, “finally manifesting the endless characters in Grimes’ head.”
The group features infinite members who “can be voted in or out, except for core members such as the baby WarNymph.”
‘WarNymph’ was a digital avatar/alias Grimes began using around the time of Miss Anthropocene.
In other words, Grimes can’t be voted out of the group.
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NPC’s debut ‘A Drug From God’ is a track Lake has been performing live for a few months already.
“Me and @chrislake just needed to get this song out cuz it’s been going so hard at festivals!” Grimes said in a post last week.
Watch Chris Lake & Grimes (NPC)’s ‘A Drug From God’:
“NPC can do all the things humans cannot,” the press release enthused.
“NPC will eventually be playable, customizable, and able to cater to each individual listener’s unique desires. Decentralized Popstardom. Made, not Born.”
Not much has been revealed about the project’s name, but it appears to stem from the gamer shorthand for non-playable character, which basically encompasses any character that isn’t or can’t be controlled by a flesh-and-blood player.
The characters themselves are still a work in progress, with Grimes releasing work-in-progress art on Instagram, introducing them as Oxytocin, Cortisol, Adrenaline, Dopamine and Tomorrow.
Grimes said NPC could be considered “fake AI” but artist Nusi Quero is “using generative AI to make their costumes and movement behaviors so they aren’t totally fake but they aren’t conscious and currently I have to write their music.”
“NPC is a vehicle for experimentation in new technologies as they become available such as generative characters and music, diff types of animation, ai assisted art as well as spiritual technology in that Grimes can create as other people in order to reduce the psychic pain of being in the public eye,” the press release elaborated.
Grimes shared a new song called ‘Love’ on her socials back in September, which was written in response to “privacy invasion, bad press, online hate and harassment by paparazzi.”
