We chatted with Grace McLean about her stirring and resonating new single ‘Albertine’
On her expansive and deeply poignant new single ‘Albertine’, multi-hyphenate actor, singer and writer Grace McLean explores the fall out of a breakup in remarkably powerful and engrossing fashion, traversing the wreckage of a recent relationship with a sense of depth and intimacy that feels truly moving and all-encompassing.
Everything here from the tranquillity and nuance of the sound to the thoughtfully crafted lyrics feels painstakingly selected and lovingly put together. There is a real air of catharsis among the yearning that feels reinvigorating and liberating, but at its core the track feels like an exercise in a certain kind of grief that comes as a relationship comes to an end, and the uncertainty that faces you on the other side. There is so much to unpack and dissect through the track that it feels like it would take hours to unpick it all, but we had a chat with Grace McLean to find out a bit more about her influences on the track and some of the themes and ideas that she looked to explore.
Hey! We love your new single ‘Albertine’, what more can you tell us about it?
Thank you! I wrote “Albertine” during the reconstruction era after a break up and it contains the searching, yearning, and fervent meaning making I found myself chasing during that time. I remember I felt like a plant who’d outgrown her pot and needed to find a new place to root. I also felt like a “me” who had murdered an “us” and I was grappling with the kind of horror of feeling exuberant while having blood on my hands. I also wanted to capture the dissonance and discomfort in the feeling of longing to connect with a slippery and unknowable beloved. The song musically contains both a close intimate quality and explosive, uncontainable, almost jarring aggression. I want the listener to feel both seduced and unsettled.
What was the process like putting it together?
I’ve gotten to work with incredible collaborators to bring this music to life, my producer Justin Goldner, the mixes by Jack DeBoe and mastering by Blake Morgan. I write following emotional logic more than pop logic and I’m so lucky to work with people who are willing to go on that journey with me and who are excited by that challenge.
What were your biggest influences when creating the track?
I was reading “Remembrance of Things Past” during this break up period, and I borrowed the name of Proust’s lover Albertine because of a description he gives of her when they first meet in “In The Shadow of Young Girls in Flower” – she appears fractured, with every changing angle or shift in light she’s different, a new person, she’s slippery and he can’t quite get a handle on who she is. Which Albertine is the real one? Is it Marcel who creates or perceives these differences and can each one be true? Is she reliable? Is he unreliable? I wanted to take that notion of an unknowable, unpredictable and capricious lover and write about how the moment the delicate, exquisite and irreversible tear in the relationship may finally bring clarity.
What can you tell us about your forthcoming new album?
I’m calling this a breakup album because it is a collection of songs about loss or lack or absence. But it is not a sad boohoo break up album – it is a look the loss in the face and make friends with it, celebrate it, question it, poke at it, ignite it and use it as kindling album. These songs are a raucous wake for a love well lived and a celebration of the barriers pain breaks down that we might rebuild better or maybe just different.
What else do you have planned for the near future?
I’m currently rehearsing for a new Broadway show called “Suffs” about the activists who fought to get women the right to vote in the US – I play President Woodrow Wilson. “Penelope,” a show about Odysseus’ wife on which I collaborated with composer Alex Bechtel and director Eva Steinmetz is playing at the Signature Theater in DC and stars Jessica Phillips. I’m super excited about the two album release concerts coming up on April 14 and 15 for “Kill The Whale,” a rock opera by Daniel Emond inspired by Moby Dick in which I play Captain Ahab – it’s so so sick. And I’m working on recording some new music!
