Album Review: The Colorist & Emiliana Torrini [Live] by Emilíana Torrini

The word “collaboration” is used with such frequency in 2016 that it wouldn’t be so strange to hear someone who’d just made a sandwich to claim they were collaborating with the bread. But Icelandic songwriter Emiliana Torrini is a genuine example of an artist who enhances her output with her partnerships: from Gypsies in Córdoba to an experimental Berlin jazz band and an Icelandic symphony orchestra in Reykjavík, and now Belgian ensemble The Colorist Orchestra. This live album of new songs and interpretations of Torrini’s catalog is a vibrant, colourful collection of classical and contemporary collisions.

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Throughout, the Colorist add textures -- like the twinkling percussion on "Serenade" -- expanding on Torrini's compositions. She in turn reacts to the shift, swapping the more hushed and breathy vocals of some of her recordings for a sharper performance. And her voice is richer on "Bleeder," which only serves to enhance its heartbreaking intimacy. This occasional writer of pop bangers for the likes of Kylie Minogue follows a less obvious arc for her own music, and that trajectory is present when the heat is turned up for her biggest hit to date, the rhythmically arresting and slightly odd "Jungle Drum." Alongside the reworkings, the record also features two brand-new compositions.

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