A year after releasing Pure Heroine, one of our favorite records from last year, Lorde has returned in all her gothic glory for “Yellow Flicker Beat,” her single from the upcoming The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 soundtrack, which she is also curating. This November, we will see Ms. Katniss Everdeen hand delivering her own brand of justice and (J)law to those sleazy, cloak donning, Donald Sutherland-lookin’ capitol mutha uckas.

“Yellow Flicker Beat” is both exactly the kind of song we are expecting the black lipstick-wearing pop phenom to release as she begins to refine her musical tastes and a tonally appropriate song to soundtrack the heroine from District 12 as she shoots blazing arrows to save Josh Hutcherson from certain doom. The brooding synths and downtrodden lyrics will be a welcome, if jarring, addition to all the holiday music that will be in full force when Mockingjay comes out.

A quick tangent: Today, Zola Jesus, a singer who channels gothic and industrial elements into her music, released her new album Taiga, which is streaming right now via The New York Times. Both artists are challenging in their own right–Lorde as a subversive pop songwriter and Zola Jesus as an aesthetically dark, experimental singer–but after listening to both artists’ new material, I can’t help feeling like their meeting in the middle is indicative of what we are now willing to call pop music.

Check out the music video below and then read an excerpt from her Tumblr about the song.

“i’m sitting up in bed, moving through desert halfway between utah and las vegas. yesterday was our ninth show in eleven days. every night, after i play, and say hi, and take pictures, and i walk up the stairs and we go on our way, i set up in this little bed office. i work from midnight until late on the soundtrack, singing into my computer, listening to demos and final mixes. my bus sleeps. we are almost at the end, the point where this soundtrack gets taken away from me and becomes something real. i’m reminded of this day last year, when pure heroine came out in this country. the feeling of something very solitary that i had worked on spinning around and around further away from me, becoming someone else’s, everyone’s. the past year of my life has seen everything around me multiply in size and number – the stamps on my passport, the number of people i have to ask before i ride on the ferris wheel after my set at a festival, the decibels that follow me when i walk around in public. the other thing that’s grown is me – my fitness, my mental stamina, my ability to think clearly and make decisions – but most of all, my capacity for love. the thousands upon thousands (wait, millions(?!!)) of you who bought pure heroine truly feel like friends to me – it’s no coincidence i’m posting this note here, where i feel the most happy and safe online, the place where i laugh the most and where every day, i feel like people get me. i never knew i could feel such a warm heart for this many people at once. thankyou for hearing about me all those months ago, and sticking around. thankyou for being here.

now, about this song – yellow flicker beat. it’s my first offering from what i hope will be a soundtrack you love. it’s my attempt at getting inside her head, katniss’. i hope you like it. ”

[via Lorde’s Tumblr]