“Since I was 17, I gave you everything/ Now we wake from a dream, well baby, what was that?/ What was that?” she sings over a mid-tempo dance beat.
On her Instagram — which has been wiped of any other content and her profile picture switched to a photo of her water bottle — Lorde shared a screenshot of a comment on the TikTok video from a bewildered fan asking, “WAIT WHAT?????”
Fans have been speculating over the release of a new album this year as it would follow the Royals singer’s pattern of a release every four years since 2013 with her debut album, Pure Heroine.
Lorde has not released an album since 2021.
The Auckland local went on to release her second album, Melodrama, in 2017 - which debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 - and her third album, Solar Power, in 2021: a project that divided fans and critics despite reaching number one in Australia and New Zealand.
Lorde also has a pattern of releasing music on the winter and summer solstices with fans already speculating online that this new album will be released on June 21, the winter solstice.
Last year, she collaborated with Charli XCX on the Girl, so confusing remix for a re-release of the award-winning Brat album.
In June, speculation over a fourth album mounted after she shared a series of images of her leaning over a balcony alongside the cryptic caption, “Use the existing tools wherever possible”. Similar to her most recent post, the caption was followed by multiple symbols - including a copyright logo and three different ‘L’ figures.
“If the tools do not exist you are spiritually obliged to create them,” Lorde wrote on the now-deleted post in June, alongside further symbols including a tarot card, the number 27, multiple stars, a shark, a rabbit and an Egyptian figure.
