| Daughter — Not to Disappear (15th January, 2016) |
Daughter — Not to Disappear 
♠ Daughter is an indie folk band from England. Fronted by North London native Elena Tonra (b. 15 January 1990), they were formed in 2010 after the addition of Swiss–born guitarist Igor Haefeli and drummer Remi Aguilella from France. They have released two EPs and one album, and are currently signed to Glassnote (North America) and 4AD (Europe). After playing the local London circuit, they toured supporting Ben Howard around Europe and have since played headlining tours around North America, Europe and Australia.
♠ In anticipation of the album, a music video for the promotional single “Doing the Right Thing” was released on 30 September 2015.
Location: London, United Kingdom
Album release: 15th January / January 22nd, 2016
Record Label: 4AD / GLASSNOTE
Duration: 47:10 + “The End”
Tracks:
01. New Ways 5:26
02. Numbers 4:17
03. Doing the Right Thing 5:15
04. How 4:24
05. Mothers 5:22
06. Alone / With You 4:34
07. No Care 2:53
08. To Belong 4:17
09. Fossa 6:47
10. Made of Stone 3:55
Bonus track on Japanese CD edition
11. The End
Personnel:
Daughter (band):
♠ Remi Aguilella, drummer
♠ Elena Tonra, frontwoman, guitar, voice
♠ Igor Haefeli, guitarist
Credits:
★ (Album cover painting — ‘The world is spinning around’ by Sarah Shaw)
Description:
★ Nearly three years after the release of their debut If You Leave, Daughter — the London–based trio of Elena Tonra, Igor Haefeli and Remi Aguilella — will return in 2016 with a new album, entitled Not To Disappear. Their first single, ‘Doing The Right Thing’, can be heard online today.
★ Eager for a fresh approach to music videos, Daughter invited filmmakers Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard (directors of the Nick Cave film 20,000 Days on Earth) to create three films for Not To Disappear. Author Stuart Evers was commissioned to write three short stories — ‘Dress’, ‘Window’ and ‘5,040’ — based on select Not To Disappear tracks. Iain & Jane’s videos are interpretations of those tales. ‘Doing The Right Thing’ (based on the story ‘Dress’) is the first of the visual trilogy.
★ ‘Doing The Right Thing’ concerns the delicate subject of dementia and its debilitating, all–pervading effect on family. Jane & Iain’s video of ‘Doing The Right Thing’ is a sympathetic portrayal. You can watch the video via the band’s YouTube channel here, or in the player below. You can stream the track via Spotify here.
★ Not To Disappear is Daughter’s second album and finds the band making confident strides forward both sonically and lyrically. Elena, Igor and Remi spent a summer in New York recording Not To Disappear with Nicolas Vernhes (Deerhunter, War On Drugs, Animal Collective) at his Rare Book Room studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
♠ “Hloubková sonda do středu tvého srdce. Propracované a životaschopné album. Nominace. 8½” — Tais Awards Academy
♠ “This is music of deceptive calm and extraordinary depth.” — The Sunday Times (Album of the Week)
♠ “Emotional dynamite.” — Q ****
♠ “Deeper, moodier, bolder, in a world of its own.” — The Independent on Sunday ****
♠ “A thing of real beauty.” — Loud and Quiet (Album of the Week)
♠ “Groundbreaking beauty.” — DIY *****
♠ “Not To Disappear will make you feel alive.” — Louder Than War (Album of the Month)
♠ “Utterly gripping... Truly beautiful, near–flawless record.” — London In Stereo
♠ “Thrilling.” — The Skinny *****
♠ NME **** | Drowned In Sound 8/10 | The Line of Best Fit 8/10
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Review
Gary Kaill | 06 Jan 2016 | Score: ★★★★★
♠ If Daughter’s debut had you label the London trio as de rigueur indie alt–folk, think again: Not to Disappear sets their tender, haunted shadowplay alight. A thrilling expansion of the template, this document of (once again) lovers that went wrong is not for the fearful, but these songs are a league ahead of their predecessors: the desperate longing of opener New Ways (‘I need new ways to waste my time… but there is something in you I can’t be without’); Doing the Right Thing (where the POV switches, disconcertingly, to Elena Tonra’s Alzheimer’s–stricken grandmother); the seething thrum of No Care (‘Oh, there has only been one night where we fucked and I felt like a bad memory / Like my spine was a reminder of her’). And with a newly expanded sound, Daughter are suddenly huge.
♠ Numbness and self–loathing sit deep at the album’s core. There’s no hiding from these songs: they know you inside out. It might — just — be a redemptive experience. Certainly, as Tonra flails for love among the ruins, you feel her shaking off the ghosts. Not to Disappear is shattering throughout: a brooding sound board, crackling guitars, unsettling beats and Tonra buried in there somewhere, documenting unspeakable hurt, graphic and unfiltered.
♠ There are times when she veers perilously close to enactment and you fear for her. But Not to Disappear is an uncommonly generous work: relatable rather than voyeuristic. Ultimately, Tonra is telling all our stories and her spare, elegant poetry is aflame with a righteous fury. Daughter come of age, and how.
SHOW:
♠ Playing Manchester Albert Hall on 21 Jan, Liverpool Academy on 22 Jan and Edinburgh Queen’s Hall on 23 Jan.
January 2016
♠ 15th — Corn Exchange, Cambridge, UK
♠ 16th — Academy, Oxford, UK
♠ 17th — Dome, Brighton, UK
♠ 18th — Pyramids, Portsmouth, UK
♠ 20th — Institute, Birmingham, UK
♠ 21st — Albert Hall, Manchester, UK
♠ 22nd — Academy, Liverpool, UK
♠ 23rd — Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, UK
♠ 25th — Academy, Newcastle, UK
♠ 26th — Beckett University, Leeds, UK
♠ 27th — Rock City, Nottingham, UK
♠ 28th — The Forum, London, UK
♠ 30th — Gaîté Lyrique, Paris, France
♠ 31st — Kantine, Cologne, Germany
February 2016
♠ 1st — Paradiso, Amsterdam, Netherlands
♠ 3rd — Gruenspan, Hamburg, Germany
♠ 4th — Vega, Copenhagen, Denmark
♠ 5th — Debaser Medis, Stockholm, Sweden
♠ 7th — Kesselhaus, Berlin, Germany
♠ 8th — Technikum Munich, Germany
♠ 9th — Kaufleuten, Zurich, Switzerland
♠ 10th — AB, Brussels, Belgium
♠ http://www.theskinny.co.uk/
Website: http://ohdaughter.com/
Label: http://4ad.com/
Bandcamp: https://ohdaughter.bandcamp.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ohdaughter
♠ MANAGEMENT & LICENSING: MATT BROWN, STAY LOOSE
♠ UK, EUROPE & ROTW BOOKING: PAUL BUCK, CODA
♠ NORTH & SOUTH AMERICAN BOOKING: KEVIN FRENCH, PARADIGM
♠ PUBLISHER: MARK GALE, UNIVERSAL
♠ UK PRESS: ANNETTE LEE, 4AD
♠ NORTH AMERICAN PRESS: LAUREN RESNICK, GLASSNOTE
♠ NORTH AMERICAN LABEL: GLASSNOTE
BIOGRAPHY:
♠ Of Irish–Italian parentage, Elena Tonra (b. 1990) was raised in Northwood, London, with her older brother, Kieran. Through her Dublin–born grandfather she experienced traditional Irish music from an early age. Her interest in music began when she received a copy of the album Grace by Jeff Buckley. After being bullied at school she used writing to “deal emotionally with life.” Changing schools at the age of 12 had a great impact and since then Tonra writes “about things I feel difficult talking about in adulthood”.
♠ Tonra began her career in music, performing acoustic shows under her own name around London, she found that this “didn’t suit me at all. As a musician, I’m self–taught and felt I was restricted by my abilities”. Haefeli attended one of the acoustic shows that Tonra was performing and found that “she had this power which drew everyone in”. Originally from Neuchatel, Haefeli also attended London’s Institute of Contemporary Music Performance where he met Tonra during a songwriting course. They began performing together with Haefeli adding electric guitars. After their first demo started word of mouth on the band, Daughter self–released their debut EP, His Young Heart, on 20 April 2011, recorded in Haefeli’s bedsit. Later that same year, they released another EP, The Wild Youth, on 2 October through artist–led Communion Records. The latter EP earned praise from British website For Folk’s Sake who described Daughter as “one of the unique sounds in the pop landscape today.” BBC Radio 1 DJ Huw Stephens also invited them to perform a Maida Vale Session for his show.
♠ Tonra and Haefeli became romantically involved and the guitarist insisted that they “keep our couple life and our band life separate, [because] I don’t want Elena to stop saying things in her songs that are personal [as] songwriters need to be expansive and they need to be unafraid”. While Tonra concurred with “Igor doesn’t question my lyrics. He regards what we do as an art form. He certainly doesn’t try to rewrite my words. I never tell anyone what my songs are about, not even him. I feel they are direct enough, anyway. They aren’t especially obscure”.
♠ In 2012, shortly after headlining a 700–capacity show in London, Daughter announced their signing to UK label 4AD. Speaking of this, Elena commented “we couldn't be happier to be working with 4AD, a label that has released so many inspirational records and whose ethos we hold in very high regard. It really is a privilege.” Their first single proper, “Smother”, was released in October of that year. It was playlisted by both BBC Radio 1 and 6Music, while being awarded Single of the Week by long–time supporter Huw Stephens. In December 2012 the band appeared on the David Letterman Show prior to the release of the record, which Tonra described as “perhaps (...) a cart–before–the–horse situation”.
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| Daughter — Not to Disappear (15th January, 2016) |
♠ In anticipation of the album, a music video for the promotional single “Doing the Right Thing” was released on 30 September 2015.
Location: London, United Kingdom
Album release: 15th January / January 22nd, 2016
Record Label: 4AD / GLASSNOTE
Duration: 47:10 + “The End”
Tracks:
01. New Ways 5:26
02. Numbers 4:17
03. Doing the Right Thing 5:15
04. How 4:24
05. Mothers 5:22
06. Alone / With You 4:34
07. No Care 2:53
08. To Belong 4:17
09. Fossa 6:47
10. Made of Stone 3:55
Bonus track on Japanese CD edition
11. The End
Personnel:
Daughter (band):
♠ Remi Aguilella, drummer
♠ Elena Tonra, frontwoman, guitar, voice
♠ Igor Haefeli, guitarist
Credits:
★ (Album cover painting — ‘The world is spinning around’ by Sarah Shaw)
Description:
★ Nearly three years after the release of their debut If You Leave, Daughter — the London–based trio of Elena Tonra, Igor Haefeli and Remi Aguilella — will return in 2016 with a new album, entitled Not To Disappear. Their first single, ‘Doing The Right Thing’, can be heard online today.
★ Eager for a fresh approach to music videos, Daughter invited filmmakers Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard (directors of the Nick Cave film 20,000 Days on Earth) to create three films for Not To Disappear. Author Stuart Evers was commissioned to write three short stories — ‘Dress’, ‘Window’ and ‘5,040’ — based on select Not To Disappear tracks. Iain & Jane’s videos are interpretations of those tales. ‘Doing The Right Thing’ (based on the story ‘Dress’) is the first of the visual trilogy.
★ ‘Doing The Right Thing’ concerns the delicate subject of dementia and its debilitating, all–pervading effect on family. Jane & Iain’s video of ‘Doing The Right Thing’ is a sympathetic portrayal. You can watch the video via the band’s YouTube channel here, or in the player below. You can stream the track via Spotify here.
★ Not To Disappear is Daughter’s second album and finds the band making confident strides forward both sonically and lyrically. Elena, Igor and Remi spent a summer in New York recording Not To Disappear with Nicolas Vernhes (Deerhunter, War On Drugs, Animal Collective) at his Rare Book Room studio in Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
♠ “Hloubková sonda do středu tvého srdce. Propracované a životaschopné album. Nominace. 8½” — Tais Awards Academy
♠ “This is music of deceptive calm and extraordinary depth.” — The Sunday Times (Album of the Week)
♠ “Emotional dynamite.” — Q ****
♠ “Deeper, moodier, bolder, in a world of its own.” — The Independent on Sunday ****
♠ “A thing of real beauty.” — Loud and Quiet (Album of the Week)
♠ “Groundbreaking beauty.” — DIY *****
♠ “Not To Disappear will make you feel alive.” — Louder Than War (Album of the Month)
♠ “Utterly gripping... Truly beautiful, near–flawless record.” — London In Stereo
♠ “Thrilling.” — The Skinny *****
♠ NME **** | Drowned In Sound 8/10 | The Line of Best Fit 8/10
@^*$@^*$@^*$@^*$@^*$@^*$@^*$@^*$@^*$@^*$@^*$@^*$@^*
Review
Gary Kaill | 06 Jan 2016 | Score: ★★★★★
♠ If Daughter’s debut had you label the London trio as de rigueur indie alt–folk, think again: Not to Disappear sets their tender, haunted shadowplay alight. A thrilling expansion of the template, this document of (once again) lovers that went wrong is not for the fearful, but these songs are a league ahead of their predecessors: the desperate longing of opener New Ways (‘I need new ways to waste my time… but there is something in you I can’t be without’); Doing the Right Thing (where the POV switches, disconcertingly, to Elena Tonra’s Alzheimer’s–stricken grandmother); the seething thrum of No Care (‘Oh, there has only been one night where we fucked and I felt like a bad memory / Like my spine was a reminder of her’). And with a newly expanded sound, Daughter are suddenly huge.
♠ Numbness and self–loathing sit deep at the album’s core. There’s no hiding from these songs: they know you inside out. It might — just — be a redemptive experience. Certainly, as Tonra flails for love among the ruins, you feel her shaking off the ghosts. Not to Disappear is shattering throughout: a brooding sound board, crackling guitars, unsettling beats and Tonra buried in there somewhere, documenting unspeakable hurt, graphic and unfiltered.
♠ There are times when she veers perilously close to enactment and you fear for her. But Not to Disappear is an uncommonly generous work: relatable rather than voyeuristic. Ultimately, Tonra is telling all our stories and her spare, elegant poetry is aflame with a righteous fury. Daughter come of age, and how.
SHOW:
♠ Playing Manchester Albert Hall on 21 Jan, Liverpool Academy on 22 Jan and Edinburgh Queen’s Hall on 23 Jan.
January 2016
♠ 15th — Corn Exchange, Cambridge, UK
♠ 16th — Academy, Oxford, UK
♠ 17th — Dome, Brighton, UK
♠ 18th — Pyramids, Portsmouth, UK
♠ 20th — Institute, Birmingham, UK
♠ 21st — Albert Hall, Manchester, UK
♠ 22nd — Academy, Liverpool, UK
♠ 23rd — Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, UK
♠ 25th — Academy, Newcastle, UK
♠ 26th — Beckett University, Leeds, UK
♠ 27th — Rock City, Nottingham, UK
♠ 28th — The Forum, London, UK
♠ 30th — Gaîté Lyrique, Paris, France
♠ 31st — Kantine, Cologne, Germany
February 2016
♠ 1st — Paradiso, Amsterdam, Netherlands
♠ 3rd — Gruenspan, Hamburg, Germany
♠ 4th — Vega, Copenhagen, Denmark
♠ 5th — Debaser Medis, Stockholm, Sweden
♠ 7th — Kesselhaus, Berlin, Germany
♠ 8th — Technikum Munich, Germany
♠ 9th — Kaufleuten, Zurich, Switzerland
♠ 10th — AB, Brussels, Belgium
♠ http://www.theskinny.co.uk/
Website: http://ohdaughter.com/
Label: http://4ad.com/
Bandcamp: https://ohdaughter.bandcamp.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ohdaughter
♠ MANAGEMENT & LICENSING: MATT BROWN, STAY LOOSE
♠ UK, EUROPE & ROTW BOOKING: PAUL BUCK, CODA
♠ NORTH & SOUTH AMERICAN BOOKING: KEVIN FRENCH, PARADIGM
♠ PUBLISHER: MARK GALE, UNIVERSAL
♠ UK PRESS: ANNETTE LEE, 4AD
♠ NORTH AMERICAN PRESS: LAUREN RESNICK, GLASSNOTE
♠ NORTH AMERICAN LABEL: GLASSNOTE
BIOGRAPHY:
♠ Of Irish–Italian parentage, Elena Tonra (b. 1990) was raised in Northwood, London, with her older brother, Kieran. Through her Dublin–born grandfather she experienced traditional Irish music from an early age. Her interest in music began when she received a copy of the album Grace by Jeff Buckley. After being bullied at school she used writing to “deal emotionally with life.” Changing schools at the age of 12 had a great impact and since then Tonra writes “about things I feel difficult talking about in adulthood”.
♠ Tonra began her career in music, performing acoustic shows under her own name around London, she found that this “didn’t suit me at all. As a musician, I’m self–taught and felt I was restricted by my abilities”. Haefeli attended one of the acoustic shows that Tonra was performing and found that “she had this power which drew everyone in”. Originally from Neuchatel, Haefeli also attended London’s Institute of Contemporary Music Performance where he met Tonra during a songwriting course. They began performing together with Haefeli adding electric guitars. After their first demo started word of mouth on the band, Daughter self–released their debut EP, His Young Heart, on 20 April 2011, recorded in Haefeli’s bedsit. Later that same year, they released another EP, The Wild Youth, on 2 October through artist–led Communion Records. The latter EP earned praise from British website For Folk’s Sake who described Daughter as “one of the unique sounds in the pop landscape today.” BBC Radio 1 DJ Huw Stephens also invited them to perform a Maida Vale Session for his show.
♠ Tonra and Haefeli became romantically involved and the guitarist insisted that they “keep our couple life and our band life separate, [because] I don’t want Elena to stop saying things in her songs that are personal [as] songwriters need to be expansive and they need to be unafraid”. While Tonra concurred with “Igor doesn’t question my lyrics. He regards what we do as an art form. He certainly doesn’t try to rewrite my words. I never tell anyone what my songs are about, not even him. I feel they are direct enough, anyway. They aren’t especially obscure”.
♠ In 2012, shortly after headlining a 700–capacity show in London, Daughter announced their signing to UK label 4AD. Speaking of this, Elena commented “we couldn't be happier to be working with 4AD, a label that has released so many inspirational records and whose ethos we hold in very high regard. It really is a privilege.” Their first single proper, “Smother”, was released in October of that year. It was playlisted by both BBC Radio 1 and 6Music, while being awarded Single of the Week by long–time supporter Huw Stephens. In December 2012 the band appeared on the David Letterman Show prior to the release of the record, which Tonra described as “perhaps (...) a cart–before–the–horse situation”.
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