Emilíana Torrini is on a family holiday in Wales when she speaks with The Reykjavík Grapevine. She radiates joy and swiftly declares her love for the country. “Wales is my favourite place,” she says. “Everything is bursting with flowers. It’s just so otherworldly. I seek out places like that, for instance, Chiswick and Kew Gardens. Things that are so alien and vibrant.”
Emilíana’s latest release exudes a similarly irresistible energy. Titled Miss Flower, and releasing on June 21, it zooms in on the life of a real person — Geraldine Flower, who happened to be the mother of Emilíana’s good friend Zoe. If one compared Geraldine to any specimen at the Royal Botanical Gardens, orchids would be most apt. A free-thinker and maverick, Geraldine bloomed, being a focus of attention for many — especially men. “Her life was like a slow-motion firework,” Emilíana says, smiling gently.
Though Emilíana admits to having known Geraldine for a very short time, over the course of the album’s 10 songs, she helps others get to know Geraldine through her suitors’ letters, which Emilíana used as a primary source for the lyrics.
Lost love letters
Born in Sydney in 1947, Geraldine spent most of her life in London. After she passed away in 2019, Emilíana went to London to stay with Zoe, whose husband, composer Simon Byrt, had contributed to Emilíana’s album Tookah. A cache with letters was discovered in Geraldine’s flat in Chiswick, West London, when the family was preparing for a memorial service. The narrative of this correspondence lifted the lid on Geraldine’s personality as well as the passionate feelings she evoked in her admirers.
“You see her clearly through the letters of the men,” says Emilíana. “Their focus is always on her.” Having turned one of the poetic missives into a song, the artist continued the work on what would become a concept album at Simon’s Chiswick studio.
Despite intense interest from beaus, Geraldine kept her marital status intact. Only one man, a spy named Reggie, whose adventurous spirit and mysterious lifestyle were in tune with her personality, was ever considered.
“Most of the letters are from Reggie, dating from the 1960s to 2018,” Emilíana says. “He got his space on the record because he was such an interesting character. Their dynamics are very interesting. You know that they were soulmates but they are not possessive of each other. They were very open with each other and had great communication.”
Fittingly, espionage becomes a metaphor for a passionate love affair. The album opens with “Black Water,” a gossamer of trip-hop beats with rippling bass suggesting a state of alert. Read by Emilíana, the lyrics cite a letter by another spy, a CIA secret agent with whom Geraldine had an ambiguous relationship: “I hope you’re still in London. I soon will be and want to take some more pleasant walks with you. Right after I must head to Istanbul. You must tell me how to reach that fascinating cave city you explored.”
Clandestine affairs
The theme continues on “Waterhole” — a song about Reggie. Starting with the white noise from a Soviet military radio station, it recounts an imaginary secret meeting of two lovers. Emilíana’s semi-whispering sultry vocals perfectly deliver the clandestine nature of a relationship. “When I was improvising ‘Waterhole,’ we knew nothing about espionage. We just went to the studio, improvised and kept thinking about a waterhole where all animals gathered, both predators and herbivores. It becomes a place of peace. Then a friend of mine, who worked with secret agents in the past, told us that ‘waterhole’ is jargon for a pub where spies meet and exchange information.”
The serendipitous choice of the name is just one of many cases where, in the words of Emilíana, “it felt like it was meant to be. As if we were told that we were allowed to do this record.”
Although no letters from Geraldine were present amongst those of her suitors, an unexpected finding helped Emilíana and Simon close the chapter. Frustrated about the album’s course, the singer got sick with flu and had a feverish dream about Geraldine. “There she was, sitting at this round table with cards and lots of wine and cigarettes, surrounded by writers and poets. Leonard Cohen was there. I’m telling her, ‘Hey, we need something from you, I can’t close this record. Please, there must be something,’ and she is just cackling.”
The next morning, an astonished Zoe approached Emilíana with a poem written by her mother. Seemingly plucked out of thin air, the two verses were swiftly turned into a song — the only composition on the album to give listeners Geraldine’s perspective. It’s also the album’s most sensual song: “When we make love / I feel I’m on the highest mountain / And the hundreds of gods in the golden valley below / Reach up to us / We are the sun.”
Parallel characters
While the story of Geraldine Flower conjures up fictional characters such as Claudia Hampton from Penelope Lively’s Moon Tiger, it is evidenced by the album cover. The black-and-white picture shows Geraldine and Emilíana superimposed on opposite sides of a table. “Initially, there was a lovely Frenchman there,” Emilíana laughs.
It manifests the soulmate-like connection between the two women. Similarly to Geraldine, Emilíana has been an adventurous soul; a free spirit with a passion for storytelling and distant places. “My mum worked in the town hall in Kópavogur. There was no childcare back then so my mum would just drop me off at the library and I would spend the whole day there until she finished her work,” she recalls. “The library was like my second home. It was just everything. I really loved books about other places. For a long period, I was completely obsessed with Iran for some reason.”
Along with reading, writing letters was an essential part of Emilíana’s life. The musician recalls one summer holiday at her uncle’s home in Germany where she had a pen pal. “I wrote her a letter saying how I miss and love her and then got this letter back with red marks made by my friend correcting my German spelling. That’s the way of showing love in her own special way.” Similarly, Emilíana’s Miss Flower gives an account of life-long unconditional love.
Emilíana Torrini’s album Miss Flower is available on streaming platforms. She goes on tour throughout Europe on July 13 and will perform at an Iceland Airwaves partner event in Reykjavík on November 10.
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