Icelandic-Italian singer Emiliana Torrini has achieved much, but gained comparatively little, off the back of a career that has blossomed in a nook out of the mainstream's line-of-sight for over a decade. She's been a voice for hire for dance acts aplenty (Paul Oakenfold, Thievery Corporation), was the lungs behind the sky-reaching "Gollum's Song" in Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and co-wrote Kylie's weightless, post-minimalist gloss-pop classic "Slow"--endeavours that really should have made her a household name by now. Heading in a different direction her last solo album, 2005's Fisherman's Woman , was a pristine master-class in hushed exchanges, but bewilderingly also fell under the radar. With Me & Armini though you get the feeling that Emiliana Torrini might be a name that begins to stick from hereon in. Easily her most cohesive and pressing work yet, she evokes the delicious and warm-hearted certainty of Feist, sealed with the glistening inflections of her Icelandic home-tongue, like a homespun and less-eccentric Bjork. Her impressive range is showcased here like never before, from the guttural PJ-Harvey-isms of "Gun" to the Winehouse jazz of "Heard It All Before", bold Gwen Steffani-esque colours of title track "Me & Armini", right down to the Beth Orton wispiness of "Beggars Prayer". --James Berry
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