As the result of a failing relationship the beloved British songwriter let her feelings break lose, resulting in a record that is as stirring as it is mesmerizing. And here's why it should become your musical ally during these cold winter days.
If the thoughts in your head are about to eat you alive it’s best to get them out of your system. Sometimes this almost feels like vomiting. At least it did for Elena Tonra. ‘It was the end of a relationship, and there was no way to undo it.,’ the leading lady of acclaimed UK trio Daughter explains the scenario behind her first ever solo record. Going to the studio on a daily basis was her therapeutic way out before getting eaten by all these thoughts as she explains: ‘The moment I realised it wasn’t going to be resolved the way I thought it was also the moment I realised I should write about it,’ she states. So, Elena did walk the same streets everyday, like a ritual, wrote these songs in her head and tried to form them into proper music.
Ex:Re is the name of Elena’s first proper solo record, recorded in a short amount of time despite the fact that the writing of these songs took her nearly a year. An inner urgency encouraged her to get this one out as quickly as she could. ‘I knew I couldn’t live with these songs inside my head for long’, she describes this feeling. With the help of 4AD’s in-house engineer and producer Fabian Prynn and befriended cellist Josephine Stephenson she formed tiny little songs out of these thoughts. The result is a tender melancholic record, carried by a nocturnal late-night vibe that perfectly fits into the current grey winter days. Especially fans of the earlier more reduced Daughter material will immediately fall for it.
However, the star of this reduced record is not the music it’s the words that floated out of Tonra. It’s the plain openness of her lyrics that are the fascinating aspect of Ex:Re. They are not sugarcoated, they are uncompromising and straight to the point, often feeling like a stream of consciousness, spontaneous yet somehow well-thought poems. ‘I’m so sad at how little joy I realised within my time with my ex guy’ she sings in the dark and pumping Romance. There appears to be no filter and almost no red line in Tonra’s lyrical cosmos. She lets the despair pour out like tears or – well, if you want to go for that metaphor – vomit. ‘This character isn’t actually me anymore,’ she explains. ‘It never was the whole of me anyway.’ Maybe that’s why she decided to go for a pseudonym here. It leaves room to make up your on mind.
The album Ex:Re addresses both – the endpoint of a process as well as the road leading towards it. It’s a bare and honest record. Simple, effective and without any unnecessary gimmicks. That’s the biggest strength of it and the fact that it also helped Tonra on her way to recovery is another plus. Despite its bleak nature this record can indeed spread home through its relieving character. When everything’s been said out loud you are finally allowed to move forward. And this future truly is probably a quite exciting one for one of contemporary music’s most gifted songwriters, that much seems for sure.