Daughter: If You Leave

In her press shots, Daughter’s Elena Tonra looks like a Vogue style editor’s idea of a nu-folk singer. There’s the catwalk-weird good looks, the alabaster-running-to-albino complexion, the beyond-hipster hair. Factor in the ker-az-eee levels of hype – including a Letterman appearance when Daughter only had a handful of EPs out – and the arrival of the London three-piece’s debut has you steeled for the worst.

In her press appearances, Tonra has little of the doomed poetess about her. She is jokey, self-deprecating and perfectly pleasant – fantastic qualities in an interviewee, but hardly what’s expected of acoustic music’s new high priestess. It’s good to report, then, that If You Leave sees Daughter fully living up to the hype. One of the most revealing things Tonra has shared with the press is that her brief spell as a solo artist came to an end because of her chronic insecurity and, on If You Leave, it’s a condition that’s explored, at times unflinchingly. Somewhere between Laura Marling and Sigur Ros’ Jonsi Birgisson, Tonra’s voice cuts and gleams like a diamond, transcending the occasionally workmanlike folktronica arrangements.
She refuses to discuss her lyrics, believing they are already sufficiently straightforward and, throughout the record, the rawness is cutting: on ‘Human’ she imagines herself as an animal with ‘teeth ready for sinking’; ‘Touch’ is a nightmarish fever dream wherein she dreams of “strangers kissing her in night… just so I can feel something.” Yikes. The going is heavy and it can feel as if you are listening to a handful of ideas that border on obsessions. Submit to its sad charms, however, and If You Leave casts quite a spell.