City Builders Finds Beauty in the Breakdown with “Learning to Miss You”

With her devastatingly honest new single, “Learning to Miss You,” Toronto-based artist City Builders offers a cinematic pop confessional carved from heartbreak, longing, and the silent echoes of grief. The project of singer-songwriter Grace Turner, City Builders continues to chart a course of emotionally raw and deeply resonant music that leaves space for sorrow to stretch out, breathe, and eventually exhale. On this track, the emotional landscape is wide and winding—an unpredictable terrain that mirrors the complicated nature of memory and the ache of absence.

From the very first notes, “Learning to Miss You” sets a tone of stillness. A sparse piano line hovers like a held breath, with Grace’s vocals entering just above a whisper. Her voice carries the weight of something unsaid—fragile, trembling at the edges, yet clear in its emotional intent. The verses move slowly, each lyric unfolding like a memory pulled from a hidden drawer. As the instrumentation gradually layers, there’s a sense of inevitability—of emotion building just beneath the surface, waiting to break.

When the chorus arrives, it does so in a sweeping swell. Strings stretch open the emotional aperture, synths shimmer like city lights through a rain-slicked windshield, and Grace’s voice rises—not to overpower, but to release. It’s not a cry for help so much as a cry of recognition, of facing what hurts and letting it move through you. The sound is cinematic but never overblown, echoing the stylistic fingerprints of artists like Lana Del Rey and Woodkid while holding fast to its own intimate voice.

The track’s structure is deliberate in its unraveling. Each section acts like a tide pulling in and out, reflecting the nonlinear way that heartbreak behaves. The outro doesn’t offer resolution; instead, it expands into something even larger. The instrumentation grows cavernous—reverb-soaked and glowing—and Grace’s voice becomes part of the atmosphere itself. There’s no return to where it started, because this kind of grief changes everything.

The story behind “Learning to Miss You” only adds to its devastating power. Written alongside the songwriting duo Thank You Thank You and her former partner, the song was already charged with emotional weight. But what makes it especially poignant is the fact that the vocals used on the track were recorded the very day her relationship ended. The end of that partnership is not just an invisible footnote—it is embedded in the vocal take, infusing every word with an immediacy and ache that can’t be replicated.

“I wrote this song after running into my ex-best friend at a show. Despite everything that went wrong, I suddenly missed him again. Later, when I recorded the vocals, my partner broke up with me right after the session. Those vocals, captured in the rawest moment, are the ones you hear on the track.” – Grace Turner

There is no barrier between the listener and Grace's experience. You can hear the split second of heartbreak lodged between breath and lyric, the fragility of someone singing not about pain, but from within it. It’s this raw honesty that has become a cornerstone of City Builders' sound—one that doesn’t look away from the difficult feelings, but sits beside them, holds them, and allows them space.

Beyond the studio, Grace continues to build emotional community through shared expression. In celebration of the release, she organized a Group Scream in Toronto’s Trinity Bellwoods Park on May 3rd. The event invited fans to gather and collectively scream—an act of catharsis that paralleled the release embedded in “Learning to Miss You.” Nearly 850 people RSVP’d, and the event gained local media attention for its unique invitation to process grief not in isolation, but together.

“Learning to Miss You” is more than just a song—it’s a space. A sonic moment held open for anyone grieving someone who’s still alive, for the ache that returns in the quiet, and for the scream you didn’t know you needed to let go.