Torrini is kooky but she knows how to milk emotions through her music very effectively.
Emiliana Torrini – Me and Armini
http://www.konkurrent.nl/ http://www.roughtraderecords.com/
I’ll admit I’m a bit late off the reviewing starting blocks with this one; I know the world and his wife have said their piece about Me and Armini; and normally I’d be content to leave it. Sometimes other people do the reviewing ‘thing’ better, you know? But with this LP, I just couldn’t let it go. It’s great. Nay, it’s better than that, it’s possibly her best record and deserves to be heard.
Me and Armini does what few records manage nowadays, namely cross over between the dreaded sets of listener demographics. Girl-pop enthusiasts, mainstream record buyers, minor perverts, people who read the Daily Telegraph and Mojo, really this LP should find an audience right across the board.
That’s great pop for you. It’s an empathic record in many ways, Torrini is kooky but she knows how to milk emotions through her music very effectively. Stuff like Me and Armini and Jungle Drum is so uplifting (despite its mainstream girl pop styling) that you need a hard heart not to warm to it. As you would expect with Torrini, the lovey-dovey ballads (such as Birds and Hold Heart) are brilliantly done.
There’s the odd hint at something harder too; the brilliant Gun, possibly the stand out track on the LP really lends a darker element to the charm-fest that’s happening elsewhere.
Great, life-affirming stuff.
Words: Richard Foster