The Icelandic singer Emiliana Torrini is sitting in the Tokyo office of her Japanese record company, talking about an izakaya where she spent an evening. Torrini has a special affection for eateries since she grew up in a restaurant run by her Italian immigrant father in a small town outside Reykjavik. "I wanted to live in that place," she says about the izakaya, and adds, "I can eat 24 hours a day. In Italy, it's an expression of love: Here, eat this love. That's why I think parents in England hate their kids. I can't believe what they eat."
Torrini now lives in England, in the southern seaside town of Brighton, which she calls "a mix between Reykjavik and London," and a very "spontaneous" place. Living for the moment seems to be as important to her emotional well-being as good food and drink are. If anything has characterized her career it's a lack of determined foresight.
She is here to promote her album, "Fisherman's Woman," which is selling well in Europe and has just been released in Japan. The record's short songs waver somewhere between melancholy and the kind of insouciance produced by an afternoon with a bottle of wine. The singer's soft, clear soprano is as emotionally contained as the arrangements are spare. Nick Drake comes to mind, but unlike the late English troubadour, Torrini isn't big on indirectness. All her songs are in the first person. "Nothing brings me down," she sings repeatedly on the opening cut. It's the only thing she wants to convey, which, of course, makes you wonder.