Ocean LeClair on nostalgia, legacy, and her poignant new chapter with Fruit on a Grave.

Listening to Ocean LeClair’s discography feels like turning the pages of her diary, where love, loss, grief, and growth are woven together with thoughtful tenderness. Her latest album, “Fruit on a Grave”, will be released on January 31st, inviting us into a new chapter contemplating what it means to be remembered.

Describing her sound as “retro-pop”, LeClair’s music is imbued with nostalgia – think folky guitar twangs, swaying tambourines, and poetic lyricism – but grounded in present and future questions of mortality, agency, and legacy. The result is an album that feels timeless, almost transcendental, with its title hinting at the cyclical rhythms of life, decay, and death.

We caught up with LeClair to reflect on the weight of nostalgia, her relationship with songwriting, and the value of online community.

For those unfamiliar with your music, can you tell us who you are, where you’re from, and about the music you make?

My name is Ocean LeClair, I’m originally German but my family moved to Mallorca, Spain when I was a teenager so I feel like an island girl. Lately I have been defining my music as retro pop just because I haven’t found a genre that really describes what I’m trying to do. I find a lot of inspiration in old music and movies and weave my own stories through the nostalgia of the things I love.

You’ve been sharing snippets of new songs and connecting with fans on TikTok through livestreamed “cult meetings” – how has social media shaped your career so far?

It used to be about getting my music heard, similar to how we used to paper the streets with gig posters and play to crowds of seven people, but it's morphed into something so much more meaningful. Despite my everlasting yearning of not being born in the 60s I feel so grateful I get to see the faces and know the names of everyone who listens to my music. TikTok is so great at creating a little world where these songs can grow into something different to when I first wrote them and I love seeing the creativity of everyone helping me build that world.

What’s it like being a cult leader?

The most rewarding job I’ve ever had (we drink cherry juice instead of kool-aid)

Songs like “Burgundy Body” and “Eau de Toi” sound a little darker and more sultry than your previous EP, “White Death”, but still maintain the meditative quality of those earlier songs. What can we expect thematically and sonically from “Fruit on a Grave”?

It's funny you say that because a few of the songs on this EP were written before the songs on White Death. White Death was written with and around my first love. I felt a sense of belonging and familiarity that I hadn’t experienced since being a kid and I think that there was a lot of innocence and softness to be found within that. I thought I had found the love of my life and in a weird way it erased the urge of needing to leave a legacy because love makes everything make sense and sedates you into a feeling of deep satisfaction. Fruit on a Grave is grieving the absence of this feeling, The Last Man I Loved feels almost prophetic, Burgundy Body processes consent and agency in a time where you don’t care about your body and what happens to it and Montreal dives into what my legacy will be now that the emptiness of lovelessness has reopened. What aging and death means, knowing that we leave with nothing. I just don’t want to be forgotten after I’m dead. 

Lead single and opening track “Montreal” references notable artists from the 60s and 70s like Patti Smith and Joni Mitchell. What is it about these artists and era that inspires you?

The people I mention (Patti Smith, Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Leonard Cohen) have achieved what I dream of. Immortality, a sense of agelessness, slicing history with their work and view of the world. Their lives are so much bigger than their own, they have contributed and given back and sowed seeds that will grow a million trees and feed a million birds (I’m one of those birds).

Does that explain your decision to close the record with a Leonard Cohen cover, ending with the additional line “I love you Leonard”? What was it like trying to strike a balance between paying homage to icons like Cohen while also retaining your own artistic identity?

This EP is dedicated to Leonard Cohen. After he died I moved to Montreal for six months and I feel like I’ve been carrying his ghost with me ever since. We talk a lot about what's original, people love to compare something new to something familiar, but we are inevitably shaped by the ones who came before us and I wanted to honour the artists who shaped me. In A Singer Must Die Leonard says “I thank you for doing your duty, you keepers of truth, you guardians of beauty”. Being an artist is a calling, a constant death. I think Leonard would’ve loved it because I meant every word when I sang it, I learned from the best. I hope he can somehow hear it in the afterlife. I like to think that he can.

What are your ins and outs for 2025?

Ins: 

Renting movies, post-punk, making playlists for friends (and lovers), staying up late, stream of consciousness writing, outfit repeating, listening to albums, zen

Outs:

Dating apps, night-time routines, subscriptions, echo chambers, perfectionism

Is there any music you listened to growing up that still has an impact on you, be it personally or as an artist?

My parents listened to a lot of Pink Floyd, Queen and Sade, always slow dancing in candle light, drinking red wine. I think I’ve become a deeply romantic and melancholic person as a result. I never get to put my playlists on at parties because people say my songs are too sad but I don’t see it that way. I think life is so fragile and brief and I remember listening to Forever Young and Dust in the Wind with this deep knowing of impermanence as a kid. I’ve always been hyperaware of my mortality. I think that’s why I’ve dedicated my life to holding on to these little moments and trying to find a way to live forever.

With the imminent release of “Fruit on a Grave”, what do you hope fans and new listeners take away from the album?

Fruit on a Grave is the closing of a chapter. The last three EPs and the hundreds of songs I’ve written leading up to them have been things I needed to get off my chest, out of my system. I always create with this need to purge. I have been writing in a very different way lately. I have started feeling freedom and joy, writing about things I never thought I would write about, creating songs for the sake of it, not always with this deep, wounded little girl in me. I’m finding parts of myself that are light and joyful and I am having fun. I almost feel like a real musician.