Alicia Clara’s debut album Nothing Dazzled feels like it arrives already steeped in lived experience. The Montréal-based singer-songwriter has been building toward this release for years, shaping a voice that is both intimate and elusive, grounded in dream pop atmospherics but informed by folk, shoegaze, and ambient textures. Across its 37 minutes, the record drifts between lightness and heaviness, revealing a songwriter who understands that even small gestures can hold weight.
It begins with Heard You, a gentle opener that eases the listener into Clara’s world. Built on a dreamy sway, it carries the sort of mood you might associate with a warm afternoon in Parc La Fontaine, unhurried and slightly blurred at the edges. Daydream, the longest track here, shifts gears with shimmering guitars and a shoegaze pulse, Clara’s whimsical vocals caught in the glow. It is one of the record’s most immersive pieces, tapping into both haze and clarity.
Her playful side comes through on It’s Getting Old, where off-kilter pop elements peek through the gauzy production. How To Dress pares everything down: layered harmonies, piano that twinkles but never overstates, and a guitar line that hangs delicately in the background. Glory follows a similar philosophy, stripped to its essentials so Clara’s voice can carry the weight of the lyric.
The centrepiece is the title track. Nothing Dazzled leans into shoegaze intensity, guitars surging with distortion under Clara’s hypnotic delivery. Co-produced with Chris Steward of Bodywash, it captures both isolation and release, written during the pandemic and sparked by a semi-lucid dream of an earthquake. The tension between stasis and eruption runs throughout the song, giving it a restless energy.
Elsewhere, the record loosens. Around The Corner has a lighter touch, as though shrugging off heaviness, while So Cool channels the understated elegance of Jessica Pratt or Montréal’s own Men I Trust. I Hang My Sweater in May returns to quiet intimacy with piano and soft backing vocals, leading into the closer, Blame It On The Moon. That final track slows the pace, adds a saxophone line, and leaves the album in a reflective hush.
Taken as a whole, Nothing Dazzled is both delicate and deliberate. It’s not a record designed to overwhelm, but one that lingers in its restraint. Clara uses space as much as sound, leaving room for the listener to settle into her introspection. It feels like a Sunday afternoon record, or something to play with the first coffee of the day as sunlight begins to stretch across the floor. Yet beneath its ease lies a searching quality, a quiet insistence that even in stillness, something is always shifting.
Nothing Dazzled is released on SEPT 5th via Happy Life
Alicia Clara plays La Sotterenea on September 12.
PhotoS – Taryn Fleischmann
