Elena Tonra Reopens the Ex:Re Files With Save As
Remember Ex:Re? Elena Tonra’s beautifully melancholic solo side quest is back and apparently, she still has some thoughts to get out of her head.
Daughter’s front woman has announced Save As, the second album under her Ex:Re moniker, arriving October 30. Alongside the news comes “Radio Station”, the album’s opening track and first taste of what’s coming next.
“Radio Station” starts politely enough, with solemn acoustic guitar, before gradually disappearing down a psychedelic California highway. It’s part road trip, part internal monologue, and a pretty good representation of Tonra’s thought process.
“The constant changing of the radio station is something I experience a lot: the back and forth between different emotions, and I end up getting stuck because I can’t make decisions.”
Ah yes. The human mind: 47 tabs open, none of them loading properly.
Built from fragments of Tonra’s memories and snippets of overheard conversations, the track floats through a woozy wall of guitars, trembling synths and Fabian Prynn’s heavy, persistent percussion. Somewhere in there she sings, “I ordered your coffee / Let’s fry all our money”, which feels like either the beginning of a terrible financial decision or an excellent indie-pop lyric.
Ex:Re, Revisited
Tonra never actually intended to make another Ex:Re album. After releasing her self-titled debut in 2018, the project was supposed to be a one-record experiment and then quietly disappear into the woods.
But in 2023, she brought a stash of half-finished songs, some of which had been sitting around for years, back into the studio with Fabian Prynn, producer of the first Ex:Re album.
The old chemistry returned. The rest, as they say, is album two.
Prynn returns behind the desk, joined by Josephine Stephenson on cello, Hinako Omori on synthesizers, Ben Reed on bass and Jethro Fox on electric guitar.
There’s no sprawling concept tying Save As together, either. Instead, Tonra continues doing what she does rather brilliantly: documenting the tiny, obsessive details of being a human with too much going on upstairs.
“Save As,” out October 30th via 4AD
Overthinking. Memory. Escapism. The places our minds wander when reality gets a little too loud.
“My memory isn’t always very good,” Tonra admits, explaining that preserving these images in songs gives her a way of returning to them. Listening to or performing them, she says, feels like travelling through time.
Which makes Save As sound less like a sequel and more like opening an old folder on your laptop and discovering you apparently had a lot of feelings.
Save As lands October 30 via 4AD.
And if “Radio Station” is anything to go by, Ex:Re has plenty more late-night brain activity in store.
Lyrics_ Radio Station
I sat on the edge of my seat
I was pulling at threads
The last good seams
Considering the state of things
A curious maze to get drawn in
Shutting out meandering conversations
Just tuning into the fragments
I am a changing radio station
I’m suddenly another, suddenly another
Oh I’m obsessive
Take me somewhere impressive
Then agree to forget me, forget each other
Well i’ve folded
I’ve ordered your coffee
Let’s fry all our money
I am a changing radio station
I’m suddenly another, suddenly another
I am a changing radio station
I’m suddenly another, suddenly another
I was commiserating in an empty room
With endless California surrounding surrounding
I repeat the same paths
“Hi, i’m looking for a place to stay”
It’s safe to say
I got what I really wanted
A made up language
A dashboard charm story
An alternate reality
I’m scratching around for it
Cheap pocket material
For a flame
Got beguiled, your eyes staring at me
Trying to remember something
I am a changing radio station
I’m suddenly another, suddenly another
I am a changing radio station
I’m suddenly another, suddenly another
How I stare into space, reminisce San Diego
And you in the front seat, so full of everything
But I can’t seem to write what you mean to me
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