Up and Coming Artist: DAUGHTER

Comparisons are bound to be made when it comes to the ever growing batch of guitar strumming, singer-songwriters vying for our attention. Every once in a while though, we unsuspectingly stumble upon one who manages to push through the mold and offers something special. For me, Elena Tonra shines beyond the rest with what she has formed as the emotionally charged folk duo, Daughter.

Together with Igor Haefeli, North London-based Daughter creates a sound built on a general folk foundation, enhanced by reverberant electric guitar, the heavy beat of pulsating drums, and Tonra’s siren-like voice that could carry the whole project on its own if it came down to it. At just 21, she manages to hold her own with the likes of Florence + The Machine, The xx, and Laura Marling.

A weakness for lovesick, impassioned female lyricists has me constantly searching for the next songstress whose music and song-writing exhibit raw, honest emotion, and along with Daughter’s comparably low-key, but just as poignant June 2011 debut, His Young Heart, her second EP, The Wild Youth, fills that current void and has just the right amount of lovelorn sentiment for any girl to relate. Released via Communion Records, The Wild Youth includes a track-list full of unhurried, intense progressions that reach epic heights, while Tonra’s subtly powerful and hypnotic voice sings intimate lyrics that drift over echoed orchestration and the ever-present rumble of percussion that creates the heartbeat and backbone for each tune—“Collecting pictures from the flood that wrecked our home, it was the flood that wrecked this home…and you caused it...”.

With such emotionally affective vocals and lyrics that bleed feelings of lost love and yearning, Daughter is climbing her way to the top of the heap. At such an early stage in her career, Tonra is proving that she has so much more to offer than the average singer-songwriter, and will undoubtedly soon be an artist who new, up and comers are compared to.