Ex:Re returns with «Save As»: Elena Tonra gives old memories a new form

Elena Tonra did not intend to make another Ex:Re album. The Daughter singer had imagined her 2018 solo debut as a self-contained release. Yet «Save As», arriving on 30 October 2026 through 4AD, takes the project into a second chapter. Its latest single, «Am I Even Real?», shows how an idea can change meaning during the act of recording it.

In 2023, Tonra returned to the studio with producer Fabian Prynn and sketches gathered over several years. What began without a firm plan gradually became nine finished songs. Their shared studio process allowed fragments that had remained in notebooks and on computers to find a new musical context.

A song transformed by changing its tempo

«Am I Even Real?» began as something slow and sad. During an improvisation, Tonra and Prynn tried making its chorus much faster. The change remained in the final arrangement, demonstrating how a familiar feeling can sound completely different when the rhythm changes. A live session filmed by Cuan Roche at 4AD’s London studio accompanies the release.

What do we keep when memories change?

The title «Save As» suggests creating a new version of a file while keeping the old one intact. It makes an evocative metaphor for songs assembled from half-remembered experiences, long-held thoughts and new improvisations. Tonra has described songwriting as a way to preserve moments that her memory may otherwise lose.

Lead single «Radio Station» uses a California road trip and constantly shifting radio frequencies as an image for indecision. «Sleep» retains a guitar idea recorded in a Paris hotel room, later processed into a loop using vocoder and drum machine. «Am I Even Real?» adds a third route, shaped by the surprise of a faster chorus. These three tracks reveal different approaches without establishing what every unheard song will sound like.

Nine tracks and an intimate creative team

Prynn produced the album, joined by Josephine Stephenson on cello, Hinako Omori on synthesizers, Ben Reed on bass and Jethro Fox on electric guitar. The tracklist begins with «Radio Station» and closes with «Healing (Slow)». A series of in-store shows starts in London on release day before continuing to Brighton, Leeds, Liverpool and Oxford.

There is no reason to pretend to review the full album before Friday. The singles instead provide a compelling picture of a project built from memory, unfinished writing and spontaneous decisions.

Listen to «Am I Even Real?» · Watch the live session · Album details