“I see colors when I hear sound,” says Alessia Cara, who shares that she saw shades of red in the soundscapes of her latest album, Love & Hyperbole. Released on Valentine’s Day, the album mirrors the richness and sophistication of wine color in the cover. The singer-songwriter explained that it represents the way she sees love. “It’s all about contrast and how we need contrast in our lives,” she said.
In the past, Cara tend to involve a hint of melancholy in her approach to love. “I always get a little negative sometimes, when it comes to love, or the outcome of love,” but Love & Hyperbole is different. Instead of depicting pure heartbreak or joy, she wants to explore all shades of emotional experiences in love. This, of course, couldn’t be done without venturing into some unknown territories. For Cara, that means to let go of her fear. “Life moves so quickly, and I’ve never really spoken about that sadness before,” she said. “It takes getting older to become more conscious of it. I’m the youngest I’ll ever be, but also the oldest I’ve ever been, and I feel that really heavily.”
It opened her up musically and spiritually, but Love & Hyperbole isn’t the work of a solo person. In the album, songs are woven by strings, horns, and vocals, bouncing off ideas, pumping new energy into the music. Cara found a new sense of adventure in collaborations with musicians and being immersed in the ensemble. “We got to feed off of each other’s energy,” she said. “There’s just a different outcome when you’re all in the room together. There’s nothing quite like a bunch of people jamming—I feel like that’s how music is supposed to be.”
In Cara’s experience, love can be extreme and drastic on its own without exaggerations. In Love & Hyperbole, she finds a space where she can be vulnerable and authentic while rich creatively. “‘Run Run’ is about me fearing that I’m going to sabotage something really great and potentially beautiful, she said. As a very emotional person, she experiences love in profound ways. “It feels larger than life in a weird way,” and sometimes, things around love “feel like the end of the world or the only thing that matters.”
Press Q&A with Alessia Cara
Q: The visuals related to Love & Hyperbole have included vibrant shades of red. Sometimes they stand out against black, sometimes they’re integrated into the environment. How would you say these visuals relate to the themes of the album?
Cara: I have always related colors, shapes, and whole universes to every song and project of mine. I don’t know if that’s related to the thing I have called synesthesia—which always sounds fake. But it’s very true and real for me. I see colors when I hear sounds. That has always been a catalyst for how I want the different album worlds to look like. It has inspired a lot of the visuals because I have so many images in my mind.
For Love & Hyperbole, the obvious answer would be love. You know, we see the imagery of red for Valentine’s Day and things like that. But I also think the specific wine color that’s on the album cover felt very sophisticated and rich. It has a warmth to it with cool undertones, and I think the contrast between the warmth and the coolness were very indicative of what the album means to me. It’s all about contrast and how we need contrast in life. I think that’s what makes life beautiful—the negative and the positive working in tandem.
Q: You’ve had several remixes of your songs—do you have a personal favorite? What excites you most about hearing your music reimagined by other artists?
Cara: It’s always really cool to hear my music like that, it brings a whole new life. It’s so interesting, you don’t realize how much the production of a song, the bed underneath a song, changes the feeling of it so much and just changes it altogether. I’ve always loved listening to the “Here” remixes… I always enjoy it and love it. I invite it too —that’s why I release a capellas of songs and the stems of songs, because I encourage people to do different things with the songs. It just provides a whole different meaning and gives it new life every time.
Q: What was the most impactful part of the production process?
Cara: We had an orchestra, string players, a horn section, and a bunch of musicians that came in. We got to feed off of each other’s energy, and that just felt really cool and different. There’s just a different outcome when you’re all in the room together. There’s nothing quite like a bunch of people jamming—I feel like that’s how music is supposed to be.
Q: Are there any new themes or experiences you’ve explored on this album that you haven’t before in your music?
Cara: I always get a bit negative sometimes, when it comes to love, or the outcome of love. But I think this song feels personal to me because it is written without…fear of anything. Life moves so quickly, and I’ve never really spoken about that sadness before. It takes getting older to become more conscious of it. I’m the youngest I’ll ever be, but also the oldest I’ve ever been, and I feel that really heavily.
Q: Can you share how the theme of hyperbole translated into your storytelling while you were writing this album?
Cara: I think I was using hyperbole in a humorous way and allowing it to pacify some of the heavier emotions. “Run Run” is about me fearing that I’m going to sabotage something really great and potentially beautiful. I used a lot of humor to say that in a hyperbolic sense like this person is going to run away from me. A lot of the lyrics are hyperbolic in a way that helps soothe the sad feeling under the surface.
There’s the other side to it when you’re in love—in a positive way or feeling heartbreak—a lot of those things can feel very dramatic. Love can sometimes be super dramatic. Especially me, I’m a cancer. I’m a very emotional person. Sometimes things surrounding love can feel like the end of the world or the only thing that matters in the world. It feels larger than life in a weird way. So [with] hyperbole there are the exaggerated emotions I was truthfully feeling. I wasn’t exaggerating for artistic purposes. There are two sides to it—using [hyperbole] for humor to soothe the heavy parts, and being reflective of what I was really feeling.
Q: You recently did some pop-up performances in cities like LA, NYC, and Toronto. How did those shows come about and what’s it like getting to perform in more intimate settings?
Cara: I was going to release [the album] in October, then I pushed it into February. Because there was such a long wait for the listeners and the people who were excited about the project, I wanted to do something in the meantime for them to be excited about and to enjoy. It was so fun to get to do that.
It felt like some of my days performing in little bars or little talent shows at school. It felt like going back to my roots. I love playing intimate shows like that because you get to see everybody’s faces and hear them singing along. You hear their voices and it’s really special.
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