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Grimes confirms signing to Columbia

By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 9 March 2021

Grimes has confirmed rumours that she has signed a new record deal with Sony’s Columbia label. So now we know for sure. And who doesn’t like knowing for sure?

“Just signed to Columbia Records”, she wrote on Instagram yesterday. “Wanted to wait till I finished [recording new music] to tell people but the word got out… so”.

“Thanks to everyone whose been following my tunes all these years”, she added. “Means the world and more to me. We’ll meet again soon”.

She then concluded by writing: “COMMENCE PHASE 2”. I’d say Grimes is already on phase three or four of her career by now, so her first major label music is going to have to be a pretty sharp about turn if she wants us to believe everything she’s done since 2010 is part of one phase.

Though, I suppose, maybe her first foray into the major label world could be deemed phase two of her career in commercial if not creative terms. She released two albums – ‘Geidi Primes’ and ‘Halfaxa’ – on Artubus in 2010, before signing to 4AD for 2012’s ‘Visions’. She released two more albums with 4AD – 2015’s brilliant ‘Art Angels’ and last year’s disappointing ‘Miss Anthropocene’.

The long delay between her fourth and fifth albums saw her scrapping and reworking a number of projects. Her relationship with 4AD also collapsed during this time, with the musician saying in a deleted Instagram post in early 2018 that she was working on “one final album for my shit label”.

She later apologised for saying “negative shit”. However, it was indeed true that ‘Miss Anthropocene’ was her final album for 4AD, as it turns out. She had previously suggested that her next album would be a companion release to that record. It remains to be seen if that is still the plan. Although that would ruin the “PHASE 2” thing a little. Unless it is a commercial rather than creative phase shift.

Anyway, as well as announcing her new record deal, Grimes has also launched a new website. There’s not a lot on there at the moment. Basically, it just invites you to sign up to her mailing list. When handing over your email address, you’re also asked if you’re “a player of games”, which may or may not be intriguing depending on your answer.

Meanwhile, if you’re wondering how long you’ll have to wait for the new music, the title of the homepage there is “Coming 4200AD”. So… possibly a while.