Lorde releases new single Solar Power to coincide with solar eclipse

Lorde has released a new single, Solar Power, just days after announcing the forthcoming release of her long-awaited new album of the same name.

The song was a surprise launch from the New Zealander, timed to coincide with the solar eclipse in the northern hemisphere on Thursday.

The sunny 3min 12sec pop song was co-written and co-produced with Jack Antonoff, and with its simple, peppy acoustic guitar and percussion is a sharp divergence in sound from Lorde’s previous works.

The single comes after cover art for the forthcoming album was released earlier this week, which features the 24-year-old singer springing over a camera on the ground, without underwear.

Related: Lorde urges climate action ahead of new book on Antarctica trip

The photograph caused a buzz on social media on Tuesday. Some fans sharing the artwork or memes based on it on Twitter reported that their posts had been taken down for copyright infringement.

Solar Power will be the two-time Grammy award-winner’s third album, following 2017’s Melodrama and 2013’s Pure Heroine.

Lorde delayed release of Solar Power, which had originally been scheduled for June 2020, after the sudden death of her pet dog, Pearl, in November 2019.

It was “indescribably painful”, she said at the time. “A light that was turned on for me has gone out. The bright energy I was trying to communicate to you has gone, for now.”

Lorde told Australian youth radio station Triple J on Friday morning that the forthcoming album will be “light, playful and fun”.

In an email to fans timed with the song’s release, she described the album’s character in terms of a beach-going girl: “There’s someone I want you to meet. Her feet are bare at all times. She’s sexy, playful, feral and free. She’s a modern girl in a headstock bikini, in touch with her past and her future, vibrating at the highest level when summer comes around. Her skin is glowing, her lovers are many.

“The album is a celebration of the natural world, an attempt at immortalising the deep, transcendent feelings I have when I’m outdoors.”

Unconfirmed reports circulated on Friday that the single may have been accidentally released early in some regions, after fans reported that it had appeared on some streaming platforms and then disappeared.

The release date for the new album has not been confirmed, though the singer has hinted that fans can “look to the natural calendar for clues” for further details.