SPOTLIGHT: Fine Food Market On Upcoming Album ‘Alas Time Has Passed’
SPOTLIGHT
SPOTLIGHT
☆ BY ELLA ASSELSTINE ☆
Photo by Edie Olender
ALAS TIME HAS PASSED—and Montréal-based Sophie Perras, better known by the stage name Fine Food Market—is back with nine new tracks. Perras’ debut album Alas Time Has Passed is an intimate and honest folk-pop record that releases on November 13. Following a series of life changes, the album was cathartic for Perras, who took time away to examine past relationships, family dynamics and childhood memories. Recorded in a cabin in Canada’s Laurentian Mountains, the album was an opportunity for Perras to get away from the city and disconnect.
“I got evicted from my old place in Montréal…so I was, like, ‘Screw it. I’m gonna move to the country.’ In that same period of time, I was recording the album. It just sounded really warm, and having the band around was really nice,” Perras says of her decision to record in the unconventional setting.
Luna sat down with Perras ahead of her performance at the 2026 edition of CityFolk Festival in Ottawa, Canada, in late September to learn more about the inspiration behind this album, and her creative process.
The songs were recorded live off the floor and featured backing instruments such as the fiddle, banjo, pedal steel guitar and piano. The sound blends upbeat indie-pop with soft folk strings and country twang. A multidisciplinary artist, Perras also created the accompanying artwork for the vinyl, using a portrait she had previously painted of her grandfather.
“Everything on the album is based on that painting. It’s a painting I made a long time ago that I named Alas Time Has Passed—so the title was inspired by that painting, which is of my grandfather in a nursing home. He was so sad and lonely with nothing around him. Every time I would go there, he would talk to me about how much my music meant to him. Even more than chocolate—and he loved chocolate,” Perras says, smiling at the memory.
The red door on the album cover also appears in that same portrait. “The concept is you open the door and there's this room where you see an old man thinking about his life and how, alas, time has passed.”
The themes of time and memories are woven throughout the record: from Perras reflecting on her parents’ divorce in “Losing at Life”—which, she quips, is “the first diss track she’s ever written”—to her ruminating over a past relationship in "Stranger." For Perras, music has always been a way to express her feelings; she and her brother, Alexandre, began writing music at an early age to escape an unsettled home life.
“One of the earliest memories I have of falling in love with music was—I don't remember what exactly we were listening to—but I was just dancing with my brother. When I was super young, we wouldn’t watch movies at home; we would just [listen to] music together in the basement. He sometimes helps with writing songs.”
Perras performed one of those songs during her set at Cityfolk Festival. Co-written with her brother, “Emmène Moi” was a dreamy addition to the setlist—a soothing French song that perfectly complemented the setting sun and cool September breeze. Perras also played a number of new tracks from her upcoming album, including “Take It As It Is,” which leans into her country-folk sound, with the hearty use of pedal steel guitar. The performance blended tracks from her 2025 EP I’m afraid to be in love with someone who crashes their car that much with upcoming songs from Alas Time Has Passed. The selection highlighted the truth that Fine Food Market is an artist on the rise—her music dreamy, intimate and infinitely listenable. As she launches this debut album, her potential seems limitless.
Photo by Edie Olender
