What happens when you mix mysticism, vulnerability and haunting beauty together? You get ‘My Lovely Enemy’, the tantilising new single from Grace McLean. The NYC-based artist pours all of these gifts into her richly tapestried sound, one that’s the perfect backdrop for her impressive vocal performance. The track itself is a careful balance between minimalism and passion, which results in a subtly seductive soundscape while McLean’s glass-like voice floats over the top.
It’s a complex sound well suited to the intriguing context, as McLean explains: “This song is inspired by a poem of 12th-Century mystic Hildegard von Bingen, about Saint Ursula’s martyrdom. In it, Hildegard expresses gratitude to Ursula’s killers because their destructive violence gives Ursula her deepest desire which is to be united with the Divine, something she could only achieve in death. It made me see the scene of martyrdom as a marriage ceremony, and I recognized that in adjusting the frame from mourning to celebration I could imagine the joy in relenting to and accepting sacrifice or loss.”
This single is also accompanied by an intriguing music video, directed by Mau Quiros, which merges surrealist imagery with dreamy symbolism. It further challenges our modern assumptions of martyrdom as something destructive or violent. Instead, through both the song and video, we are asked to understand this self-sacrifice through the medieval lens of love, celebration, and beauty.
The way that McLean plays with visceral and ethereal sonic elements, encompassing her pop-infused beats with these more intellectual ideas is something to be admired. It’s a rare feat to make something seemingly so alien to us now accessible and relatable. Perhaps through listening to ‘My Lovely Enemy’ we too can find compassion for what we don’t fully understand – as Grace McLean succinctly describes, the “exquisite unknowing.”
You can listen to ‘My Lovely Enemy’ in our Outsiders Club playlist.
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