My wife came home the other day, thrilled to have reacquainted herself with Emilíana Torrini on the radio, a singer/songwriter whose CD I remember she bought some ten years ago. It went right into the CD player on arrival, which, honestly was quite a pleasant surprise. So much of the late 1990′s music sounded more or less the same, I suppose, which is probably why we really didn’t pay much attention to her at the time.
She sounds like something in-between Stina Nordenstam and Björk, fragile, yet aggressive, when appropriate.
What neither of us knew, is that she’s in fact Icelandic, which is a bit of a coincidence, as she had to step in for fellow Icelander Björk, who backed out due to pregnancy, singing Gollum’s song in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the ring epic. On seeing her full name, Emilíana Torrini Davíðsdóttir, it all makes sense, of course.
But I’m digressing. Torrini’s chill out denomination is highly questionable, to say the least, but much of it easily passes as chill-out, with a definite air of the 1990′s about it.
Even though chill out is generally considered a thing of the mid-nineties, I beg to differ. Here’s an old favourite of mine, The Art of Noise’s Robinson Crusoe (1989):
I apologise for the absence of visuals. However, this tune is perhaps more in line with the late 1980,s easy listening revival. Remember that?
Anyway, along came the 1990′s, with its Buddha bar concepts, coffee bars and chill out all over. There was no avoiding Air, and we all ran for the latest Sigur Rós CD’s. Damn, there’s Iceland again.
But above all, Air:
Or Morcheeba or Boards of Canada or Groove Armada or Belle and Sebastian or Café del Mar or… Dunno where to begin, really, but I think I’ve come to appreciate it all again. If you’d like to rediscover it, too, I can recommend The AOL radio’s (well, CBS radio, really) Relax Trax (choose from list).
Photo: Emiliana Torrini (Wikipedia)
