Alicia Clara Dismantles Perfection On Double Single

Alicia Clara Dismantles Perfection on “So Cool / It’s Getting Old”

The Montreal-based singer-songwriter breaks down her fresh double single ahead of her debut LP, Nothing Dazzled.

by Cam Delisle

Photo by Taryn Fleischmann

Published on May 8, 2025

Alicia Clara not only writes from the blur between self and performance, but also envy and apathy. Her new double single, “So Cool / It’s Getting Old,” doesn’t ask to be understood so much as felt. They’re two pop-leaning songs with no patience for foreplay, skipping intros to dive headfirst into the ache. They shine, but they’re full of splinters. What sounds like ease is laced with unrest.

These are songs about the versions of ourselves we invent to survive—then get stuck inside. Clara sings from a place just outside of her own reflection, watching it flicker, and then smooth itself over again. In our conversation, she speaks on mimicry as a form of protection, letting go of precision to find something truer, and the disorientation of becoming. There’s no need for a resolution here—just movement, tension, and the strange freedom of using music as a tool for discovering who you are.

Who are you?

Hi! I’m Alicia Clara, a singer-songwriter based in Montreal. I am releasing my debut LP, Nothing Dazzled, on September 5, 2025, after about five years in the making.

Talk to me about the double single release. Why did it feel right to release these two tracks as a package?

To be completely candid, to try to bring attention to my music as efficiently as possible. Picking four singles for my upcoming album was a difficult decision to make. The songs that didn’t qualify for this badge of honour won’t enjoy the same amount of visibility, so my distributor and I figured a double package would be a good way to “save” one more track. Both songs have no intro and get straight into the groove, which I am hoping will help with short attention spans.

“It’s Getting Old” feels sharper, more frustrated—how do you see it in conversation with “So Cool”? Were they always meant to be paired?

They initially weren’t meant to be paired thematically. Musically, however, I’ve always seen them as a duo while recording the album, to the point where I considered dropping one because they felt too similar. They are the two poppiest tracks on the record, they both start with the same chord, they are in the same key, and the chord progressions are a bit more complex than my other songs. But as I was establishing my release calendar, I discovered that their narratives worked together. “So Cool” pits myself against someone that I wish I could be, and “It’s Getting Old” is begging me to stop fretting about that. So in the end, it made sense to release them as the duo I’ve always seen them as.

Both “So Cool” and “It’s Getting Old” wrestle with identity and self-doubt—when did you first start becoming aware of mimicry as a coping mechanism, and how did it shape these songs?

I discovered I could trick people into thinking I wasn’t a loser when I was 14. I had always struggled to make friends at school because I had no understanding of social cues, and I would often get made fun of. I wasn’t able to brush it off, so I defaulted to aggressive self-defense when talked to—which exacerbated everything. I’m not saying I had zero friends, but it was complicated.

One day in middle school, my class went on a week-long field trip with another class, and I decided to observe my socially capable friends and replicate their behaviour with the new people. And it worked.

Old habits die hard, and the music industry often feels like a high school for adults. The feeling of needing to fit in and to sell the best version of myself takes me back to that time. And when I think about it long and hard, it seems so absurd. These two songs really are exposing the absurdity surrounding my insecurities about that.

“So Cool” came together spontaneously. What did letting go of perfectionism in that moment teach you about your creative process?

It taught me that pressure is a dumb thing. I put too much of it on myself, which makes my life harder than it needs to be.

I initially wrote this song with an extremely similar chord progression to “It’s Getting Old,” and the melody fell flat—which is why I thought about dropping it. Chris Steward, who co-produced my album, insisted there were some good bits that deserved to be heard. So about two weeks before recording, I challenged myself to edit the chord progression, structure and melody, with some input from Chris.

I went in convinced that I was going to drop the song either way, and it alleviated some of the pressure. I did it almost as a dare, just for fun, and the result surprised me. Similarly, going into Port William Sound Studio, I asked to record a scratch vocal take just to have a guide while recording other instruments. Because I did not think this was going into the final mix, I sang my heart out like it was karaoke. I was surprised to find I’d recorded a near perfect take on the first try, when I’d been having breakdowns trying to get two words right on other songs.

There’s a tension between the breezy sound of the track and the strange, almost uncanny imagery in the video. Was that contrast intentional?

Noa Julien, who is one of my best friends, had been asking to make a music video for me for some time. When the time came, she showed me moodboards filled with images of a surreal world she intended to build, that we then split into three separate videos (more coming soon…). I was immediately drawn to it, and I felt it would be a good match for “So Cool,” which is essentially questioning who I am to myself, to the outside world, to the universe and the powers that be. It’s scary and surreal to think that the answer to that question is constantly shifting; I can be one way and its complete opposite all at the same time.

The world of the video feels both dreamy and disorienting—what does that in-between space represent for you personally or artistically?

Having dreams and living with them is confusing and scary as hell. Every bit of beauty we experience is nourished by the knowledge that we could miss it and/or that it won’t last. Loving life passionately is a bit of a curse in that sense, and I unfortunately often experience a deep sadness immediately following a high. I’m being told this is why I’m a songwriter, which I try to remind myself when I feel down—for my sanity. I already have quite a lot of written material for my next album, which is built around that theme. To fully love, there has to be a certain amount of pain.