Rough Trade Albums of the Year 2023 (UK)

Rank: #12 (See full list here).

https://www.youtube.com/embed/2CbdK8h0bag

Returning with their first studio album for seven years, Stereo Mind Game is a new chapter for Daughter. The group’s third record follows Not to Disappear (2016) and soundtrack Music from Before the Storm (2017). After more than a decade spent depicting the darkest emotions, the trio of Elena Tonra, Igor Haefeli and Remi Aguilella present their most optimistic record yet.

The album’s lead single, ‘Be On Your Way’ is accompanied by a video created by Tiff Pritchett. The track is a longing but resilient song about an enduring connection that is also indefinable. The romantic figure Tonra addresses in the song is someone she met in California while writing the record. They shared a significant connection but she knew the Atlantic lay between them. The video for ‘Be on Your Way’ evokes a collection of memories, with footage of Tonra superimposed with images of beautiful passing moments – the flight of a bird, a field of flowers. ‘Be On Your Way’ is not a loss of hope but a confidence in and acceptance of the passage of time.

Connection and disconnection permeate Stereo Mind Game’s twelve songs literally and figuratively. In the intervening years since the Ivor Novello-nominated Music from Before the Storm (2017), the band has moved away from their initial London base – Aguilella relocated to Portland, Oregon, Haefeli to Bristol, England – and spent time on their own projects (including Tonra’s debut solo album under the moniker Ex:Re in 2018). However, despite the physical distance – further exacerbated by the pandemic – Daughter continued to meet and write together. Produced by Haefeli and Tonra, Stereo Mind Game was written and recorded in various locations including Devon, Bristol and London, England, San Diego, California, and Vancouver, Washington.

For the first time, Tonra’s is not a lone voice. Haefeli lends vocal lines on ‘Future Lover’ and ‘Swim Back’ and on ‘Neptune’ a choir appears. Voice notes from friends and family feature on ‘Wish I Could Cross The Sea’ and ‘(Missed Calls)’. London-based string orchestra, 12 Ensemble, feature throughout the album, with orchestration by Josephine Stephenson, and a brass quartet brings warmth to ‘Neptune’ and ‘To Rage’. While Daughter’s previous work found power in emotional honesty, Stereo Mind Game welcomes opposing feelings. “It’s about not working in absolutes,” Haefeli says.