đ Weâre getting tons of new readers, and Iâm SO very worry about the state of the archives and the links.In the long term â THINGS ARE GONNA BE SO MUCH BETTER!(These were two-way conversations, so those "Hey, what's up?
Whereas that first album saw guitarist Igor Haefeli and drummer Remi Aguilella build a record of swirling reverbs around frontwoman Elena Tonraâs pensive bedroom-penned ballads, Not To Disappear has been forged after two years of a heavy touring schedule, establishing a more self-assured tone.âWe felt ready,â Igor tells Music Radar.
âBut [before that] we all needed a bit of time away from each other for a while, to live, and to get the creative juices flowing again.âHaving also co-produced the album with Nicolas Vernhes (Deerhunter, Wye Oak, The War On Drugs) in New York, the guitarist is in a good position to judge. There was a will to hide behind a bit less reverb and for Elena to write in a more direct way. Itâs hard to explain, but in terms of dynamics, on the first record, we let ourselves be surprised a bit more in the studio.âThe way we recorded was a bit like a jigsaw, so it was pieced together in a nice way, but â dynamically speaking â maybe sometimes there was a sense that it [accidentally] became louder than intended.âNow Elenaâs being more direct, lyrically, it feels that the playing is reflecting thatâŠâYeah!
Here, Igor reflects on the recordâs inception and imagery, valuable production lessons and how the band themselves learned not to disappear⊠Daughter, as a band, were not previously famed for their confidence. [Last time] a lot of that was Elena saying âTurn the music up on my vocalsâ constantly and I was going heavy with the reverb on the guitar.
This time it was very much the intention to be more confident, just because thatâs what the songs were suggesting.âIf You Leave was a bit more eery and from a dream, whereas this one we wanted to anchor in things that were around us. A song like New Edge really informed the rest of the record, because a lot of the images we were getting in our minds were of hot concrete and the sun and LA highways and that sort of thing.â So hot concrete, LA highwaysâŠ
How do the images on this album differ to the images that you associated with If You Leave?
âI think the difference is that If You Leave was more of a landscape.
What follows is a slow, classy (to a fault) â and misleading - dramatisation of the affair between these two game-changers within their respective fields.
Misleading not just because, as Stravinsky scholars have argued in recent years, it over-emphasises the role that music â as opposed to choreography â played in upsetting the first-night crowd, but because it would have us believe that this relationship was defining for both of them.
âYouâre not an artist, Coco,â he tells her at one point, âYouâre a shopkeeper.â Mouglalis is the more compelling of the pair.
Sheâs flat-chested, moves as if shimmying down a catwalk, and treats her staff with contempt.
Itâs hard, perhaps by definition, to recreate the shock of the new in art.