Name: Happy In The Hollow
Brand: Toy

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

TLV118LPC

{"blocks": [{"data": {"text": "TLV118LPC"}, "type": "paragraph"}]}

Colour

Colour details

Discogs ID

Discs

Download code

Download code: No

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: Yes

Format detail

LP++ - Limited to 1000 Copies on “Behind Blue Eyes” vinyl and exclusive to Indie stores only with Download.

Format Music US

Limited edition

Release date

2019-01-25

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier US

Redeye

Tax rate US

Sales:8.875

UPC / Barcode

5055869506113

{"blocks": [{"data": {"text": "5055869506113"}, "type": "paragraph"}]}

1 / Extended format: Yes / LP / Rough Trade Exclusive: No / Signed copies: No

Artist

Genre US

Rock-Pop

Label US

Tough Love

Ex:Re - <a href="https://roughtrade.com/us/music/ex-re-ex-re">Ex:Re</a>

Available on Rough Trade Exclusive Limited Blue Vinyl with Download and Bonus CD. This is the only Colored Vinyl Version available in the world.

The first solo album from Daughter's Elena Tonra, under the moniker Ex:Re, is a lingering love-note to a companion now gone, and although there is little comfort in her sadness, Tonra is able to find beauty and eloquence.

"I miss you". The on-going narrative of the album. The hazy memory of a relationship is stitched together with anecdotes. Moods of isolation, pining and despair. The song Romance speaks of an empty and almost angry one-night stand, in The Dazzler she drinks alone in the protective limbo of hotel, all the time hauntingly reminded of a missing piece. What once was and is no more. Like Prince's Nothing Compares 2 U, the relationship is only referenced as a point of comparison to the sadness she feels now. The spectral relationship hangs around in the shadows, without ever revealing its true form.

The sheen and clarity of Daughter is gone with Ex:Re, in exchange for more tender and textured sound. The light-touches elevate Tonra's voice, allowing her to work within her emotion and without the need to accentuate. There are flashes of Jeff Buckley, gentle reminders of Laura Veirs and even a raw Sun Kil Moon touch on the song New York.

This is not an album that screams empowerment, in fact fragility and self doubt are the key themes, but the eerie approach strikes a chord we all know well and all should have experienced. The album goes to the very heart and does not flinch in handling the comedown and despair of a love lost.

Albums of the Month - February 2019

2. Prefab Sprout - <a href="https://roughtrade.com/us/music/prefab-sprout-i-trawl-the-megahertz">I Trawl The Megahertz</a>

3. Sharon Van Etten - <a href="https://roughtrade.com/us/music/sharon-van-etten-remind-me-tomorrow">Remind Me Tomorrow</a>

4. Unloved - <a href="https://roughtrade.com/us/music/unloved-heartbreak">Heartbreak</a>

5. Toro Y Moi - <a href="https://roughtrade.com/us/music/toro-y-moi-outer-peace">Outer Peace</a>

6. Toy - <a href="https://roughtrade.com/us/music/toy-happy-in-the-hollow">Happy In The Hollow</a>

7. Beirut - <a href="https://roughtrade.com/us/music/beirut-gallipoli">Gallipoli</a>

8. Mara Simpson - <a href="https://roughtrade.com/us/music/mara-simpson-285-days">285 Days</a>

9. Night Beats - <a href="https://roughtrade.com/us/music/night-beats-myth-of-a-man">Myth Of A Man</a>

10. Sneaks - <a href="https://roughtrade.com/us/music/sneaks-highway-hypnosis">Highway Hypnosis</a>

Albums of the Month - February 2019

Albums of the Year 2019 Top 100

Rough Trade Album of the Month - February 2019

Toy are back with their new album, Happy In The Hollow. Their fourth album, and their first for new label Tough Love Records available on Rough Trade Exclusive Snow White Vinyl, Limited Indie Exclusive Vinyl, Standard Black Vinyl and CD.

It’s unquestionably their most direct and propulsive album to date. Recorded between their own home tape studios and mixed at Dan Carey’s Studio B in South London, the album was entirely produced and mixed by the band. Happy In The Hollow is entirely uncompromising: an atmospheric capturing of a state of mind that touches on Post Punk, electronic dissonance, acid folk and Krautrock. Familiar qualities like metronomic rhythms, warping guitars, undulating synths and Tom’s gentle, reedy vocals are all in there, but so is a greater emphasis on melody, a wider scope, and a combining of the reassuring and the sinister that is as unnerving as it is captivating. The sound has without doubt expanded — and grown more confident — in part because this is the first album for which Toy has become a self-sufficient five-person unit doing everything for themselves. For fans of The Horrors, Moon Duo, Wooden Shjips, Spiritualized, Brian Jonestown Massacre, Dungen, Goat and Clinic.

LP+ - Rough Trade Exclusive. Limited to 200 Copies on Snow White Vinyl with an alternative 'secret 7” on Snow White Vinyl and Download.