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CMU Approved
Approved: Ex:Re
By Andy Malt | Published on Monday 3 December 2018
Daughter frontwoman Elena Tonra announced her solo project, Ex:Re, last week, promptly releasing her debut album under that name days later.
Tonra began writing the album last year, recording it with 4AD’s in-house engineer and producer Fabian Prynn over the last few months. The record deals with the period following a break up and has a real immediacy to it, in no small part thanks to its lyrics which spill out like thoughts delivered in the moment.
“Although the record is written for someone, a lot of the time it’s about the space without that person in it”, she says. “In every scenario, there’s either the person in memory or the noticeable absence of that person in the present moment. I suppose it is a break-up record, however I do not talk about the relationship at all, and he hardly features in the scenes. He is only felt as a ghostly presence”.
A varied album, it often drifts sonically close to Daughter, but shuns the rockier side of Tonra’s main band. She also drifts elsewhere, though, like on lead single ‘Romance’, on which her vocals are surrounded by a hazy, weary sort of house music, like life outside these thoughts is trying to fight its way in.
Following a one-off show at Hoxton Hall in London last week, you’ll be able to catch Ex:Re live again opening for Ben Howard at Brixton Academy on 19 Jan.
Watch the video for ‘Romance’ here:
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