Clara La San isn’t one to capitalize on virality. The British artist’s first brush with fame occurred over a decade ago, when her spacey slow jam “Let You Go” found underground success on SoundCloud. Still in college, La San quickly drew industry attention for her wispy take on bedroom R&B. But she didn’t sign to a label, preferring to linger in her insular corner of the internet. So in 2017, when the reclusive singer dropped the mixtape Good Mourning in collaboration with rising dance producer Jam City, it seemed like she had changed course and started aiming for the spotlight. But then, those aspirations apparently sputtered out: La San pulled the mixtape off streaming platforms two years later and retreated into hibernation.
For longtime fans, it was unclear if Good Mourning’s disappearance meant an early retirement. Stans shared bootleg copies of the project on Reddit and YouTube and built a cult following off the traces La San left online. Apart from the occasional vocal spot, La San stayed quiet—but she never completely slid into obscurity. “In This Darkness,” a longing song from her early SoundCloud days, became increasingly popular on TikTok, soundtracking everything from celebrity breakups to anime fight scenes. When La San re-emerged, it was with a debut album many years in the making: Made Mistakes, which came out in June 2024 with a foggy palette of early-’00s R&B and UK garage that elevated her laidback origins without shedding her DIY charm. I expected La San to gradually drift into the ether after that release—but instead, as if playing into her mystique, she made another unpredictable move: re-releasing Good Mourning on her own terms.
La San cited her perfectionist tendencies as the reason she initially pulled Good Mourning. “There was something that just didn't really feel ready [about it],” she told The Fader. “I can be a bit of a people pleaser but when it comes to music, if I don't like it, everyone's going to know about it.” The reworked vision of Good Mourning isn’t a huge departure from the original recordings, but it has a more polished touch. Her new vocals are crisper, moving away from the muffled sound of the earlier version. Geoff Swan, who’s worked with pop heavyweights like Charli XCX and Chappell Roan, mixed the project and lent his hand to its more dynamic quality. Although its initial release predates our current onslaught of Y2K nostalgia, the mixtape draws from the same set of influences—Aaliyah, Timbaland, Janet—meshed with the softer edges of UK electronica. It’s a fuzzier counterpart to Erika de Casier’s take on the MTV age, relying on lush synth pads and lo-fi filters to create its hazy atmosphere.
Despite its clear 2000s references, Good Mourning doesn’t bank too hard on pastiche, offering enticing melodies and delicate depictions of liminal emotions. La San’s voice is breathy and light, a departure from the divas like Brandy and Amerie she cites as influences and consistent with the whispery tones of contemporary pop. On highlight “Unplanned,” La San meditates on the impending dissolution of a relationship with a quiet reserve; the opening notes of bird chirps playfully nod at the stark reflections of a morning after.
For all the intimacy created by the low-key appeal of bedroom production, La San’s lyrics can lean broad and ill-defined. “Gravity” charts an on-again-off-again relationship cycle; it’s rich territory for incisive songwriting, but the song’s clunky hook—“I’ll come back around”—and hazily sketched gravity metaphors don’t cut it. For all the stirring production flourishes of “Run To You,” La San doesn’t have much to add to the well-worn genre of taking back an ex, either. The lyrical opaqueness makes sense for such an elusive artist and it’s often offset by La San’s skillful meld of influences—but occasionally, she ventures too far into anonymity or cliché.
The re-release of Good Mourning isn’t just a mark of fan service but an interesting reckoning with La San’s artistic past. It’s refreshing to see an artist revisit an earlier work with an eye towards creative completion, rather than as a grab at nostalgia points. By refining Good Mourning into a mixtape she’s proud to share, La San exerts creative control outside the confines of pressure from a label or stans online, proving how a bit of mystique remains compelling in a decade demanding hyper-visibility from artists. Perhaps now that she’s finished scrubbing her past clean, La San’s step backward can serve as a future vision for her sound.
