Reykjavík Grapevine - 09.12.2016, Qupperneq 36

Two and a half years ago Emilíana
Torrini quit the band. There was no
drama or hard feelings. “I prom-
ised myself if I started to think
about other things on stage then it
was time to stop,” she says. “When
I was singing, I started thinking
about how I needed to wash my car
or something. I just wanted to feel a
firework again.”
It was time to stop.
And so it begins
Almost immediately after leav-
ing off her career as one of Ice-
land’s most in-demand solo sing-
ers, Emilíana got a phone call
from a guy in Berlin who wanted
to arrange her music for a string
quintet. “I thought: ‘Oh, that’s bril-
liant,’” she says. “I was really up for
it. I just made up a rule right there:
you choose the songs, make the
setlist, and I will come and sing.”
She showed up in Berlin with
no expectations for the gigs. There
was no string quintet. “I was like,
‘Where is the band?’ And he just
said: ‘Oooh, I didn’t have the time,’”
she recalls, giddy and laughing. “I
thought that was just so funny!”
Instead, he put together an experi-
mental jazz band.
“The problem is that your ears
are just not as good as theirs—im-
prov artists are really, really fast.
The first gig we played this beauti-
ful Alice Coltrane-like journey and
I was like, ‘Yeah, I’ve got this now.’
Then the next piece we did was
completely different, it was totally
mental. The next show we had a
completely different band. It just
kept changing and I thought, ‘What
is going on!’ But I completely loved
it, I felt the firework and I thought:
‘This is how I want to work.’”
The era of improv had begun. “I
started getting lots of phone calls. I
got calls from gypsies in Cordoba,
I met a guy in an Icelandic coffee
shop who invited me to come to
Canada…” Often to the surprise of
her suitors, Emilíana always went.
She travelled, she sang, she learned,
she improvised.
Spinning together
Somewhere in the eye of Emilíana’s
whirlwind, the Colorist Orchestra,
a duo from Belgium, got in touch
with her. “I think everything was
leading to this,” she says. “Three
years ago I might have said no,
or been too shy.” Holding true to
her newfound freedom, Emilíana
agreed and put forth the same
terms she had with the other art-
ists: you pick the songs, choose the
setlist, I will come sing. “People
know who they are and what they
do best,” she explains. “If you inter-
fere with that sound, then they’re
not free.”
But Belgium was different.
“They put a lot of work into it,” she
recalls. “All their music is scored.
Every hit is scored. I was a bit
ashamed that I hadn’t prepared
at all. We had this really magical
chemistry, both in the music the
friendship. I knew we couldn’t just
end after five shows.” They contin-
ued to play shows and put together
a live album, released on December
9th by Rough Trade Records.
Next up, never know
Emilíana is pregnant with her sec-
ond child. “Nooo!” she exclaims,
wide-eyed. “We were going to work
through next summer, and now I’m
not allowed to fly. We’ll keep play-
ing for a short time, then it’s ‘holi-
day.’ Then I don’t know. Maybe back
into performance again. But maybe
I’ll just want to be with my baby. I’ll
probably just be like, ‘No, I can’t be
bothered,” she says, laughing and
flicking her wrist. “Who knows?”
Who knows? It’s been the man-
tra of her music the last two and
a half years. And a pretty fruitful
one at that: one that’s brought her
from Cordoba in the spring to Tur-
key on Thursday, from house shows
in Canada to TV appearances in
Belgium. Like a good improv show,
what’s next is anybody’s guess.
SHARE: gpv.is/et18
Music Interview
Emilíana Torrini’s New
Improv Act: Life
Words PARKER YAMASAKI Photos ART BICNICK
36The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 18 — 2016
As You Go