Emiliana Torrini’s latest effort creates quite a quizzical, interesting, and somewhat bizarre structure for a musical release. Emiliana seems to balance carefully between powerful and delicate primarily alternating between these sensations on each song on her upcoming “Me and Armini” cd. Listening to the third song, Birds got me excited about the musical theme that she was creating. Opening with a beautifully crafted first line, “Let’s stay awake and listen to the dark.” I was immediately removed from my day job to a floating experience. With touching lyrics throughout, this song was one of my favorites.
One of my favorite aspects of “Me and Armini” was the effortless ability Emiliana showcased at transferring from different genres. Bouncing between pop, world, reggae(ish), introspective music, she seems to create a genre of her own. While it is easy to pigeonhole female musicians with touching lyrics and breathy voices into the a simple category I was continuously impressed with Emiliana’s ability to take risks while staying within her control area. There were some parts that seemed a bit scripted on the album, primarily the use of sounds rather then words during some of the singing, but it never took away from the finished product. Gun is a great example of how the lyrics were strong and the vocal sounds created by Emiliana did not take away from the quality of the song, but did not really add to it. I was impressed with the back-up musicians on Gun. The bass and guitars really helped in creating a dark and dreary setting, I was truly waiting for the next lyric because I was roped into the story of the song. One listen to Gun was not enough for me so I repeated it three times and was able to pick something new and enjoyable out of it each time.
Emiliana Torrini created a wonderfully crafted album that is easy to listen to all the way through. Though her alternating style of power and sensitivity gets a bit predictive at times, the overall content of the album cannot be questioned. This is a strong performance from an established artist who used her experience to achieve a listening experience for the audience.
(Ed. note - as you can see she is visually wacky - just like her Icelandic pal Bjork)