Today's Pick

Canadian producer and electro-pop singer Grimes, known offstage as Claire Boucher, came out swinging in late June with "Go," her first song in two years. The tune signals a departure from the sound she established herself with, mostly, she explained at the time, because she had written it for Rihanna originally, but it was turned down when Rihanna chose not to record it, Grimes and collaborator Vancouver beatsmith Blood Diamonds then decided to reclaim the track for themselves. In her hands, the track features screams and drops and echoes; it's vibing just fine with the rollout for Grimes' highly-anticipated new album.
It's a truly epic bit of pop weirdness, and now her recent summer jam has a pretty wow-worthy video to match. It is a dizzy pileup of images: Black lights! Iron masks! Billowing silks! Big-ass swords! Intense Vapo-Rub dance moves! Sand dunes! Hair flips! It's a whole lot to process like next-level crazy and we mean that in a good way. In the past, Grimes music videos have brought Claire Boucher to a football game, a motocross rally, and deep into the woods. For her brand new "Go" video, she's out in the desert, visiting the Salton Sea, and dancing amongst mimes in a neon chamber. And really, the video was also partially inspired by Korn's "Freak On a Leash." Seriously.

Co-directed by Grimes with her brother Mac under the alias Roco-Prime, the cryptic clip is a sci-fi homage to Dante's Inferno features sweeping desert landscapes and casts Grimes as Dante and Blood Diamonds as Virgil. It even opens with the first lines from "Inferno," spoken over images of dancers moving in a dark. Eventually, her new "Go," the EDM-influenced lead single off her forthcoming LP, kicks in, and the singer wields swords and crosses deserts while wandering through her personal circles of hell. What happens next is a wild visual feast of claustrophobic demonic dance and gorgeous post-apocalyptic imagery in her Korn-inspired take on the epic poem.
"It's our take on Dante's 'Inferno.' The circles of hell reflect more contemporary issues though. In the 'Inferno,' people's actions in life echo eternally," Grimes explains on her Tumblr about the different scenes represent a contemporary take on Dante's infamous "circles of hell." "It's not a traditional hell, it kind of reflects stuff that's going on today. We shot a bunch at the Salton Sea, which is basically an apocalyptic wasteland filled with dead fish because of human carelessness, a hallway of bullet holes à la Korn 'Freak on a Leash.'" If that sounds like a lot, don't fret. "It is also abstract enough to just be a trippy visual accompaniment to the song," the singer concludes.