EMILIANA TORRINI - MISS FLOWER
Released: 21/06/2024
The first album in 10 years from Emilíana Torrini proves that the Icelandic artist has lost none of her ability to write gorgeously off-kilter pop songs – and man, that voice. Imbuing the English language with the same beguiling Nordic pronunciation as Björk and Jenny Hval, which makes every line sound like a gentle incantation, Torrini’s is the kind of voice I could happily listen to for hours reciting the most boring of political manifestos.
The titular track, which sounds not unlike a mournful chanson classic as performed by Múm (ie, really bloody lovely) sets the tone for this masterful, seductively crepuscular record. On said composition Torrini repeatedly, insistently sings, “I want to taste you Taste your lips, feel your hair /I want to breathe you, taste your hips, taste your skin / I want to own you”, and rather than coming off as merely performative, as it would with lesser artists, from Torrini’s mouth it sounds downright vampiric – in the sexy A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, or Gary Oldman, way, just to be clear, rather than in the confoundingly silly David Niven way – and not a little dangerous.
Pickup available at Dreamhouse Records
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