Catching Up With... Emilíana Torrini

Emilíana Torrini didn't mean to have the number-one album in her native Iceland when she was 16. In trying to record a few cover songs for her father's fiftieth birthday, it just kind of happened. Since then, the now 31-year-old has co-written a hit for disco dance queen Kylie Minogue, and sang on The Lord of the Ring's "Gollum's Song." Torrini recently found time to chat with Paste while gearing up to tour in support of Me and Armini, her third and latest intentionally released album, out earlier this week.

Paste: For your album Love in the Time of Science, you largely wrote in the studio as you recorded, and for Fisherman's Woman you wrote well before recording. How did Me and Armini come together?
Emilíana Torrini: No, it was actually the other way around… For Fisherman's Woman it was mostly going into the studio and going into an unconscious dreaming, much more of a flow and just things happen. … I'm kind of working with my best friend [Dan Carey] at his home, so we record and we write the songs and then kind of record them at the same time, and then when we go into production. It's much more thinking about sound. The songs are mainly written with almost just jamming them out.

Paste: Did Me and Armini come about similarly?
Torrini: Yeah, even more, because we've become so comfortable. Also because this time there was no breaking of the focus. Dan [Carey] decided to take me to Oxford for five days, so we were there writing only and cooking, and so there was no disturbances. In the three months or four months after that we went to Iceland, so all in all the album was written in two and a half weeks, recorded in five.

Paste: Does writing in the studio yield a shorter process?
Torrini: I've always been in the studio, it's where we write. It's [Carey's] house, it's not like we're in a sterile environment. It's full of kids running around upstairs, so it's very lively.

Paste: Me and Armini has a bright eclecticism in its varied styles from song to song. Did any specific forces help shape its outcome?
Torrini: No, no idea, it just came. I think I've always had that happen, especially with this record, just let everything come out that wants to be born and not try to control it too much. And with this record it confuses people. It's not that different, it's just like three songs are different the rest of the record. It's a very natural progression from Fisherman's Woman.

Paste: The title track has a distinctive ska/reggae feel to it-- was this a conscious choice? Why go with this vibe in contrast to the rest of the album's songs?
Torrini: We were in the studio drinking whiskey in the night, just jamming, and then three days later Dan [Carey] came. I was saying I would like to write another song for the record and he was like, "Well, why don't we use the ska track," and I didn't know what he was talking about! I didn't remember writing that song, and then I heard it and thought, "Oh, this is nice." I could have had it [on a B-side, but] I'm kind of funny about B-sides. I don't connect with them very well. I don't see the point of not having a song you like on the record, it could kind of get lost.

Paste: Who or what is Armini, and what does the album's title mean to you?
Torrini: It doesn't mean a lot, I made a joke because I don't remember doing [the song "Me and Armini"]. It's a much longer song than it is now. I had to take three verses out of it.
We were laughing, me and Dan, we made up this story that this woman was obsessive, that Armini died and came into the studio and went into my body and kept stalking Armini through the song. …It's a storytelling song.

Paste: Is the album a storytelling album?
Torrini: A lot of it is biographical, I guess from me. I guess it always comes from you. Some of it's more observational.

Paste: What is your dynamic with producer and collaborator Dan Carey like?
Torrini: He's one of my best friends. I'm the godmother of one of his kids, too. We [have a] very good friendship and creative friendship, very funny and silly.
 
Paste: You've helped write and produce a number-one hit for Kylie Minogue ("Slow"), and you contributed "Gollum's Song" to The Lord of the Rings soundtrack. How do you balance your time between writing for yourself and taking on this kind of work?
Torrini: Well, that kind of work doesn't come up very often, and I'm very focused on what I do, so unless it's something really, really fun and exciting, challenging to do, I just keep doing my own thing. I don't let a lot disturb when I'm doing a record. Really it's all the same thing at the end of the day, but it's just trying so I'm not drowning in projects.

Paste: According to a New Yorker review, when you were 16 you self-released an album on a whim that went on to be the number-one record in Iceland. What was that experience like for you?
Torrini: It was a silly record, but I was just trying to record a few songs, help record a few songs for my dad's 50th birthday and it just went out of hand. In a good way.

Paste: Was that enough to convince you to pursue music thereafter?
Torrini: No, I've always known, I don't think there was anything else for me. It's the only thing that I've been able to keep doing and keep liking, something that doesn't bore me.
 
Paste: Did you know when you were a kid that you'd be a musician?
Torrini: Well, it wasn't like that, it's kind of like a relationship… people are married for 60 years, that sort of thing. One day at a time.

Paste: What has changed for you in terms of your writing style since you released Love in the Time of Science in 2000?
Torrini: I rarely write with other people, lyrics. I like writing them myself and I like to write the melodies. I'm more bossy myself. I think I'm just being more interested in it, and in the beginning I didn't really know if I wanted to write music, and then with the first record it started happening and it made me really anxious. Before I went to the studio I felt uncomfortable, and with the last record it was a record that had to happen for me. Then I discovered new ways of writing. I was completely discovering to just let it be in the studio and react to something and let it come out. It was more chilling out and getting to a flow and this time it's become much, much stronger. For the first record my favorite thing to do was touring, and then singing, and then writing the last record it was writing, singing, touring. And now it's even more so. Now I'm almost forgetting about singing. I love writing music.

Paste: For your second album, Fisherman's Woman, you covered a song by Bill Callahan ("Honeymoon Child"), and your press release says you spent time writing with him in the States. How did this pairing come about?
Torrini: I love his music and I managed to say it to my ex-manager, and he kind of called up and then came to me [about writing with Callahan], and this is when I'm super anxious with writing, so I was just like, "No way, no way, I'm not going." Nothing came out of it, I think I just looked to the ground because I was just too nervous… I love, just love his songwriting, love his lyrics… Some of [his songs], I know when I'm about 99 I'm going to think that they're my memories, the images, "Yeah, I said that really once and was with the inmates with my rifle!" I know I'm going to think that when I'm 90.

Paste: What is your new focus now that Me and Armini is out? Tour? Writing songs for the next album?
Torrini: Rehearse-- we have so little time to rehearse for the tour, I'm just hoping it will be alright. I'm just excited to go on the road.