Exclusive: Watch Daughter's beautiful one-take video for 'All I Wanted'
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Your support makes all the difference.Today we bring you a mellifluous live version of Daughter's 'All I Wanted', which sees frontwoman Elena Tonra joined by string and vocal quartets in the Asylum Chapel in Peckham, London.
The lush arrangement was composed by Josephine Stephenson, unexpected and discordant high notes piercing the tension between Tonra's casual "yeah"s on the chorus.
Shot in one-take by director Simon Lane, the video sees heavenly light bursting through the chapel windows, the camera orbiting Tonra and her musicians, roving the space like in a late Terrence Malick film.
Written, recorded and produced by Tonra, the original version of ‘All I Wanted’ was included in Daughter’s soundtrack to the video game Life Is Strange: Before The Storm.
“Josephine’s arrangement is stunning, it tells the story of the original song in a way that I couldn’t have ever put into words,” Tonra explains. “When she sent me the first demo of her arrangement I was so emotional listening to it. It’s wonderful hearing one of your own songs reimagined in such a perfect way. It was also a treat to work with Simon Lane. It was shot live in one take, which I think really heightens the drama in it. There is an edge to the performance when you know that if something goes wrong you have to go back to the start and reset… luckily nothing went wrong at all!”
Josephine Stephenson commented: “I was really lucky that Elena basically gave me free rein. We knew we wanted an intimate setting, and because of the nature of the original song, which has as sole accompaniment multiple layers of bass and guitar, it felt right to go with a string quartet. I quickly decided to forgo one of the violins and replace it with a second cello, to keep the attractive 'low-end heavy’-ness of the track. Once those decisions were made, it all came very naturally: I stayed close to the original material while also enriching it with what those instruments have to offer in terms of expression and timbre, and extending the song’s harmony ever so slightly here and there to fit this new version. The arrangement also features a mini-choir of four providing the song’s backing vocals. I feel very fortunate to have been joined by excellent musicians on this project. It was a good day.”
Music from Before The Storm is getting an official vinyl release as part of Record Store Day on 21 April, 2018.
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