During our life journey, it's incredible how often we all come across to so many people around the world, may they be our friends or part of our family, that have led a fascinating, hidden life unbeknownst even to their closest relatives.
It must have been extraordinary, therefore, for the Icelandic music artist Emiliana Torrini, while visiting her friend Zoe Flower in London and comfort her for the passing of Zoe's mother Geraldine, to discover dozens of letters, photos and journals of Geraldine's personal life, clearly indicating that she had received in total nine marriage proposals but never married, had an intense relationship with a man called Reggie that their correspondence suggested he might have been a spy in the 60’s and who had also (Geraldine) a very varied group of friends, one of which had a lion cub that she would walk some evenings after dark, among other incredible stories emerging on Geraldine's secret life.
This is the story behind the making of Miss Flower, Torrini's latest album that our website had the privilege to review last year an album that then became also an incredible docufilm called The Extraordinary Miss Flower, which took the cue from the Icelandic singer-songwriter's record and saw her also involved in an acting role in the equally hugely charming, intriguing and visually stunning docufilm.
Co-produced together with Simon Byrt, Torrini's long-term collaborator and Zoe’s husband, Miss Flower and The Extraordinary Miss Flower have received and are still receiving, to these days, a huge amount of appreciation from the many thousands of Torrini's fans around the world and from cinema goers and lovers, all attracted not only by the mysterious life led by Geraldine Flower, but especially by the way that Emiliana Torrini has chiseled Miss Flower's tales through a fabulous blend of Electronica and Folk, where the Icelandic singer's hypnotic vocals are able to drow in everyone's attention to the songs, all exquisitely arranged and performed with enormous class and grace by Emiliana Torrini.
After a decade from our last conversation with this extraordinary Icelandic artist, Bluebird Reviews had the privilege to speak once again to Emiliana Torrini about not only the making of her new record, but also about the fabulous docufilm The Extraordinary Miss Flower, which saw in the cast, together with Torrini herself, also special appearances by the renowned British actress Caroline Catz, comedian and presenter Richard Ayoade, Australian singer/songwriter Nick Cave and Australian actor Angus Sampson, among others.
Emiliana Torrini winning the Icelandic Award for Record Of The Year for 2024
BR- Miss Flower, both as a record and as a film, has proven to be a very successful project. Are you a bit overwhelmed by this huge success obtained by Miss Flower?
ET - Erm, no, I'm more excited and impatient (smiles) but, most importantly, very grateful for that, at this time. I didn't take for granted at all the positive reviews about the whole project around Miss Flower.
BR - Were you at least somehow surprised by the curiosity that sparkled around the story of Geraldine Flower, once the record was out first and then, most recently, the docufilm about Miss Flower?
ET - Hmm, I wasn't sure, to be honest, because sometimes it's very difficult to put it into a bio, do you know what I mean? It's very difficult to explain the experience, so I wasn't sure if we (Torrini and Simon Byrt, the album co-producer together with Emiliana Torrini and also married to Zoe Flower, daughter of Geraldine Flower) were going to be able to do it. In the beginning stage of making the record, it was a bit tricky, people around us weren't quite sure... But I think that the forward move about making the record came when more and more people were starting to believe in it and seeing the picture in the way I was. Those precious people around me were very influential in convincing me to carry on with the story about Miss Flower. There are moments where you really appreciate the kind of push forward that these people give to you, the way they look at the idea behind a record and are able to say that defining "Yes". I think, in our world, everybody is so careful about expressing themselves, like "Oh, I better not say anything about it before that other person says something before I do". Fortunately for me, in the process of creating the story about Miss Flower, those precious people were very direct and honest with me in the most encouraging way, saying how much they loved the idea.
BR - You have been, throughout your career and still are, a prolific songwriter and someone always capable to explore the emotional universe of women in such a wonderful way, often even on a personal level. Our website was wondering which were the biggest challenges for you, about inhabiting somebody else's personal life story and the freedom you were allowed to be able to take some personal licenses on the lyrical content of the letters.
ET - It was really exciting. I also think that you can read letters in many different ways and I think that, in Miss Flower's case, it was more the world around her that appeared to me, while I was reading the letters and the rhythm that you sense when you are reading them.. It became like a co-writing process, in a way and it felt very freeing too to imagine, to let your imagination to run wild. You always have to connect with the person you write about, you know, so I felt I definitely connected with a lot of sides of her. She came across as a free-spirit kind of person, impulsive and I think it was for me, by connecting with her that way, living life through her, a little bit. Also realizing that I was also having similar things happening in my life, a sort of parallelism between my life and hers, like losing my father a month after Geraldine died.. I guess that, without knowing at that time, working on the record felt like a healing, cathartic experience for me, but doing it through someone else. It's like an origin kind of story, because I had an Italian father and I was brought up in Iceland and then there was also the feeling of almost losing your identity and the sense of belonging to a country, by losing my father, because he was my connection to Italy (smiles)... So, when I looked at Geraldine Flower's story, she was an Australian-born lady moving to England, that she has a child to raise by herself and nobody around to help her out in raising this child. She manages to do this by herself and, yes, there were a lot of things I connected with through her story and, maybe, through my father's story too. And then having a parallel life of thinking why I have put myself inside a construction I don't belong in, why I worked so hard in putting myself in that frame. I feel that, through this record I also broke this frame, meaning that there was also a personal journey, along the way.
Emiliana Torrini with Zoe Flower & Simon Byrt
BR - Do you feel that what also helped you to break that metaphorical frame you just mentioned was maybe working with The Colorist on an album called Raising The Storm (2023), after you had not released a solo album since 2013 (Tookah)?
ET - I think that working with The Colorist was most certainly part of the journey that I went on, where I had 3 years of my life where I was saying "Yes" to anyone that asked me if I wanted to play with them. Back then, I was like "Yes, you choose the songs, do whatever you like to them and then I'll show up to sing it and doing gigs together". That was a really important part of the journey, for me, because I kept asking myself "How do you grow, within being an artist and how do you keep telling a story and how do you live the story"? You have to be writing constantly and being some kind of creative Goddess, while at the same time you have a family to look after, children, to be able to make a living, making money for the family.. How do you suppose to do all that with little experience, you know? To be able to live your life, you have to collect that experience, to write about it and I think that working with The Colorist, as I said before, was definitely part of the journey for me, especially about the part concerning keeping on learning to write music and other ways of working and to be, maybe, more generous. I feel that, working with The Colorist on Raising The Storm, it was that step of the journey that helped me to work on my next step, which is Miss Flower. Every part of the journey is very important, because it teaches you something gradually and if that part doesn't teach that important something to you, then you cannot be able to make the next record you were meant to make. It's like a building block, from one thing to the next.
BR - Emiliana, understanding that you lost your father around the time when you started working on the album, do we read correctly that the line included in one of the album's songs, called Black Lion Lane, that says "Ciao Bello, dammi un bacio (Hi gorgeous, give me a kiss)", is a sort of your personal homage to your father's passing?
ET - Yes! (smiles) Definitely! I just wanted to put my dad in there, well spotted!
BR - You have always been very keen in finding new sonic alleyways, when you write songs and, in that respect, our website was wondering, while working on this record, how challenging was it for you to find the right musical arrangement to be applied on each of Miss Flower's songs?
ET - Finding the right arrangement happened very, very organically. I guess that the reason might have been because we have been working together for so long and we are both almost able to read each other's mind, now. We have all sorts of different ways to do this part of the process. With Dan Carey, with whom I was writing the songs with and is a close friend of mine just like Simon is, we have this kind of family vibe, we know each other so well inside and out. This makes possible that writing songs just becomes this kind of rhythm, among us; we both like all sorts of music, we understand each other's musical language, even when it can be a bit obscure, kind of psychedelic, sometimes (smiles), in terms of sound. I definitely have a very clear picture, very often, where something is going, because it's fully formed, in my brain. Many times, when we write together and we finish a song, afterwards we look at each other and say "Wow, how did this happen?". It's just a kind of flow, it's synchronicity, somehow, between people, that is quite weird, you know? I have been very lucky to have met three people that I have connected with in that way and often, in life, many of us never manage to find that kind of person, therefore, I really feel very fortunate in that way. I guess that those people so precious to me, they have all got something very much in common, like, they know their instruments and everything can be done at the same time. We were laughing about it, the other day, when I get a bit jealous when people says things like "Hey, I worked in a recording studio that was so amazing" and I'm like "I never get to go in a studio!" say, places like Abbey Road Studios! (Laughs). Because we never work that way, we don't do a song and then the producer comes in and produces it. We are writing and producing at the same time, which often takes a bit longer, in the process of making a record. But we never made space for the label to go and say "Yes, well, now it's time to go to the studio and here you are, wow!" (Smiles) We never get that, because we finish everything in the same spot where we are in. We have a tiny tiny garden studio and we just love to work there, it's just enough space for us. And when we are done, for the day, in the garden studio, we can enjoy together a nice glass of wine!
BR - Emiliana, can we ask you whether your friend Zoe Flower, Geraldine's daughter, left to you and Simon total freedom to unveil what side of Zoe's mother story she preferred to be told on the record and somehow, re-imagined by you?
ET - Yes. I think that, after I did the first song that ended up on the album, I pushed that song and the lyrics quite far, into a very sexy realm. I remember being in studio with Simon, who kept on coughing very often, kind of telling me that I was pushing it a little too far. So I thought that perhaps it wasn't very sensitive of me, on the same day of Zoe's mother memorial, to write something like that. So I saw Zoe and made her listen that song, apologizing if maybe I had pushed it too far and she started too to cough, a little like Simon (smiles). I said to Zoe that the lyrics I wrote was what came into my head, by reading some of the letters and I asked her whether I had gone a bit too far, to which she said "No, my mum would have loved it!" (Laughs). I think that Zoe went very much along with it, because she knew that her mother would have liked it. Zoe's mum was a great storyteller, just as I feel I am too and we both have a very obscure sense of humour... She (Zoe) completely trusted me in telling her mum's story in the way I felt it in my mind. I was also very aware that I was holding on the story, because in every family, the mother's figure is like the gem of a household and you can't mess with that story and I was very aware of how I would treat it in the whole. I very much involved Zoe throughout the whole making of the writing process, because I felt that cooperating between the two of us, in terms of seeking approval for my songwriting about her mum's story, it was the right thing to do.
BR - Let's touch, please, upon that extraordinary docufilm called The Extraordinary Miss Flower, inspired by your record and Geraldine's incredible life, a modern masterpiece of visual and spoken art on so many levels, where, neither music nor narrative are at each other's service, but they just integrate and complement each other. Can we ask you how long did it take for the project to be filmed and how much did you enjoy the acting process?
ET - Oh, thank you so much! It went all extremely fast, although it sounded very much, in the beginning stage, that there was not enough funding to support the project. Then, thankfully, Distiller Music decided to fund the whole film and that very much helped the making of it. Iain (Forsyth) and Jane (Pollard, both movie directors of The Extraordinary Miss Flower) had very little to work with; the script of the movie was written in about three months and we filmed it in two days. We (Simon and I) went into the Distiller Studio, which was amazing and it was cut into four parts, a bit like a cake, where every part had a set done within each space. Everything was done there and, whilst there were 4 different spaces, we really felt very close to one another. I had my script just shortly before they started shooting and I met Caroline (Catz, British TV and theatre actress who played the part of Miss Flower in the movie) for the first time in the make-up area! (Giggles). So, it was all very fast, like, "Oh, my God", you know? In the beginning, I asked the directors whether I could have an actor to help me out, being completely new to acting experiences and they said to me, "No, don't worry, it will be all fine". I felt really awkward and mortified, when I did a couple of camera tests, but I was also aware that, literally, there was no room for mistakes. You had only that one chance to do your scenes and if there was any technical issue, you just had to improvise and get along with it. At one point, I had just finished a scene and the next scene request was like "Ok, great, on next scene you have to dance" and I say "What???" (Giggles). But then, rather fortunately, we had the legendary choreographer Kate Coyne there and, a little like you would do with the dancing video game, she kindly accepted to stand behind the camera and do the movements, with me copying them at my best. For the band rehearsal, unfortunately, I had to be back in Iceland the first day and I couldn't be present in the studio. The band played together for the very first time, that first day they went in the studio, with everybody learning their parts separately in separate countries before getting there. Oh, it was one of the most nerve-wracking things that we'd done and get away with, basically. But, it also, at the same time, showed that we are in an age where we know our crafts very well, realizing that we could jump in extremely deep pools and get out of them sort of unscathed! (Giggles). I think that, for us, it was a really thrilling experience; there was no time to be dramatic about it, because there was no point to do so. We were just following the joy, we were all there because we wanted to be there. It was an exciting experiment and there was hundreds per cent will, on my side, to come out of this experience in a foolish way, because of my bad acting, a risk that I was willing to take (laughs).
BR - We saw you in some of the movie scenes with Simon recording with the band. Was there any pressure, at some point, both from the band in studio and you and Simon, about having to nail the filming in one or two takes?
ET - We just went into a sort of autopilot mood. We just felt the pressure, but used it as an additional source of energy instead. We couldn't even afford the luxury of worrying, we just had to get on and do it. I have to say that we had some incredible directors, in Iain and Jane, who made the filming process look easy and smooth, which was great. When you are in that kind of environment, you also get to realize the reality of what often actors mention in interviews, about members of the crew being incredibly supportive and you don't get to understand it fully, until you find yourself there, living that experience on your own skin. You find yourself, all of a sudden, in front of 50 crew members and you get to fully appreciate their skills, their focus and patience, which is so awe-inspiring. And on top of it all, they need to make you feel, as an actor, comfortable enough to carry on with your duties, but staying behind the scenes, like protective ghosts. To get the right people to do the right job, having the right skills, is so difficult in any working environment and to be able to shoot a movie in such a short time frame, it's miraculous, so kudos to the directors.
BR - We understand that you have just finished a Tour and taking now some time off for you to spend with your family. Is there another Tour for the second part of the year, by any chance?
ET - That is true, I have just finished the Tour and, for what concerns the next Tour, that will take place in autumn. We are planning to tour smaller venues in a more acoustic way, musically speaking. It will be a Tour where there will be a mix of songs from Miss Flower and some other from previous records. Hopefully, I'll just be able to be on stage, one day and someone from the crowd just yell a song that wants to listen and I'll be like "Ok, let's just do that one!" (Smiles).
BR - We remember that, 10 years ago when we spoke to you at the time Tookah was released, what you were hoping to fulfil, in the incoming years and while working full time as a mother of your first child, three dreams; to try and complete an Opera music teaching class and get the degrees for that, to learn playing an instrument and to compose music for a TV show. Did you manage to fulfil any of those dreams of yours?
ET - (Laughing loudly) None of that! Completely forgotten about them, but I had another baby instead! (Smiles) Motherhood took priorities and it was much more fun (giggles).
BR - When watching The Extraordinary Miss Flower, one may sense that it wasn't all about Geraldine Flower's personal story but, in many ways, there was also the feeling, reading between the lines, that the movie was also about Emiliana Torrini, artist and human being. With that in mind, in your opinion, where does Geraldine Flower ends and Emiliana Torrini begins?
ET - I honestly don't know. I guess that it all becomes a bit of a mash-up, but I think that the film is exactly how I imagined Miss Flower. It's a reflection of my brain, it's basically in my fever dreaming.. It was a bit more extreme, I was really in that story and became a really big obsession for me. There are a lot of stories that have not been told, about Geraldine and are much clearer than maybe are in the movie. It is still a very beautiful mystery, this movie; for me, it was an adventure, a proper one, about finding codes and keys, in those letters and yet you cannot get the full picture, about this lady and there is a frustration in there as well. So, on one side, you have Miss Flower and her naughtiness, somebody that keeps you on your toes by being vague and making you keep on searching the full truth about her, while on the other side there is me, picking up the breadcrumbs pieces of the story! (Smiles). It's nice to be imagined, sometimes, in order to create a myth; that's what muses are, you know, you never really know who they are!
