UK indie-folk trio Daughter have reunited after a seven-year hiatus bringing us their third dreamy studio album Stereo Mind Game. The album was released on the 7th April via Glassnote and has already been named Rough Trade’s album of the month.
Daughter’s seven year hiatus has come to an end.
Eerie and elegiac, @ohdaughter seep into the modern day rock canon with a fascinating unworldliness, continuing to evolve on ‘Stereo Mind Game’.
Our April Album of the Month.@4AD_Official https://t.co/wZDEYDUcM1 pic.twitter.com/BZmqKR9PaJ
— Rough Trade (@RoughTrade) April 11, 2023
Bittersweet longing colours the 12-track album with lead singer Elena Tonra’s soft anxious vocals layered delicately over melancholic post-rock guitar riffs. The spacey album has received critical acclaim from NME, Pitchfork, Far Out Magazine, and the Guardian.
To celebrate the album’s launch, record stores around the world held listening parties for the public to get a sneaky preview of the record the day before its release. A pop-up shop also opened on Quaker Street in London selling Daughter merch on the album’s release day. The band debuted songs from the album live during their at Rough Trade East on Brick Lane, London on the same evening.
Pastel film kaleidoscopes together in the three music videos released for “Party”, “Swim Back”, and “Be Your Own Way”.
Watch the video for “Swim Back” below:
Daughter is comprised of North London singer Elena Tonra, Swiss guitarist Igor Haefeli and French drummer Remi Aguilella. The trio formed in 2010, after Haefeli attended one of Tonra’s acoustic shows in London. Their debut album, 2013’s If You Leave, received positive reviews from critics and charted at number 16 on the UK album charts. Some of the lyrics deal with Tonra and Haefeli’s break up, which happened shortly before the album’s release.
Stereo Mind Games is the band’s first studio album in seven years and follows on from 2016’s Not to Disappear. Daughter released one soundtrack in 2017, Music From Before the Storm, the soundtrack for the video game Life Is Strange: Before the Storm. The album is 13 tracks and is largely compromised of instrumentals.
After Music From Before the Storm, the band announced a temporary hiatus with Elena telling Guitar Magazine: “We decided to have a little break, because we realised that we’d been together and working together for about eight years, so we decided it would be nice – in a friendly way! – to spend some time apart”.
During this time, Elena released her debut solo album Ex:Re (2019). The album explores Elena’s fresh heartbreak. She further explained to Guitar Magazine the decision to work on the project solo: “All the Daughter songs are personal but it just felt like another level. I was like no, this is too much, this is like handing Igor and Remi my personal diary and being like, ‘Have a flick through guys! Let me know if there’s any good stuff!’”.
At the moment, the band has yet to confirm any plans to tour in support of Stereo Mind Game.
