So, I posted a photo from it but I wanted to mention the Emiliana Torrini gig I attend last week. The venue, Oran Mor, is quite small and intimate, occupying the top floor of an old church and holding maybe 400-500 people, tops. The stage wasn’t set very high and, upon taking to it, the diminutive Ms. Torrini admitted she was a bit taken aback that everyone was ‘right there’.
Musically she’s a tricky one to pigeonhole. Her Icelandic roots make the leap to Bjork a bit too obvious and she’s certainly more grounded in traditional songwriting arrangements than her Icelandic counterpart, but that’s not to say it’s all acoustic guitars and winsome melodies. Her last album covers such tracks as well as a reggae tinged number as well as bringing a pop sensibility to things. It makes it her most accessible album and probably accounts for the range of ages in the audience.
But it’s her turn of phrase that caught my ear when I first chanced upon one of her tracks, and allows me to suggest that she’s not far short of Mr.Garvey (Elbow) for a nicely visioned lyric.
A good gig then, an excellent venue that was small enough to be intimate, and a pretty slick set from the band. Her voice, whilst sounding quite delicate at times, can certainly hold it’s own against 5 and 6 piece band, and her desire to give the audience the background story to most of the songs was endearing.
Not sure how she’d fair at a larger venue and whilst I hope she continues to build her fanbase (she’s released three albums so far) part of me hopes she sticks to this size of venue as it seems perfectly suited to her sound.
