Alicia Clara

About Alicia Clara

Alicia Clara is a Swiss-Québécoise, Montreal-based singer-songwriter. Her debut full-length album, Nothing Dazzled, was largely written during pandemic lulls. The album and its eponymous track were inspired in part by a passage from American author Eve Babitz’s memoir, Eve’s Hollywood (1974), in which she laments a “stock summer during which nothing dazzled.” Clara—who doesn’t journal—treats her debut LP like abstract diary entries, culminating in an early memoir of her own. Longstanding questions have been resolved, closing the door on old grudges and making space for new concerns and contemplations. Recurring motifs are pulled from prolonged observation of changing seasons, surreal dreams, friendships divided by plexiglass screens, and sudden but subtle signs of growth. The extreme seasonal variations of Clara’s home base of Montreal are refracted throughout the record via contrasting arrangements and styles, swinging between icy synth pads and warm guitar tones adorned with the sound of crickets. With velvety vocals often compared to the likes of Hope Sandoval and Jessica Pratt, Clara’s work has won acclaim from CBC, Exclaim!, Le Devoir, has charted !earshot, and has led her to perform at festivals such as SXSW, Montreux Jazz Festival, and Festival d’été de Québec.