While her band
Daughter played with intimate atmospherics and expansive soundscapes, singer/songwriter Elena Tonra turned further inward on her introspective
Ex:Re project. Though the music remains in a similar sphere as
Daughter -- especially in their shared love of
the xx --
Ex:Re also incorporates the delicacy of
Bat for Lashes, the pained beauty of
Cat Power, and the ambient exploration of
Radiohead.
After releasing three critically lauded sets with
Daughter in the 2010s, Tonra announced the project in 2018, issuing the melancholic self-titled debut that November on 4AD. Written after a tough breakup,
Ex:Re (which means "Regarding Ex") acts as both therapeutic closure and an outlet for Tonra to purge emotions, crafted with engineer/producer Fabian Prynn and cellist Josephine Stephenson. ~ Neil Z. Yeung