The middle's a pretty big place, making room for everyone from pop floozies to coffee house snoozes. Even then, Icelandic singer Emilíana Torrini (her dad's Italian) has never seemed sure just where in the middle she wanted to be. Love in the Time of Science was tinged with trip-hop. 2005's Fisherman's Woman was spare folk à la Beth Orton, somewhat hazy but far from crazy. And now, with Me and Armini, her sixth album, Torrini has shifted gears once again, however slightly, to that middle-of-the-road spot most rife for subversion-- amorphous, soul-jazzy adult alternative.
The move fits her. Torrini's voice is pleasant but also pretty anonymous, so it's therefore well-suited to any number of (mostly mellow) musical settings. Against a backdrop of generally acoustic guitars and gentle backbeats, Torrini doesn't aim to shake you up but to settle you down. Hers is a voice built to soothe, and the unobtrusive grooves of Me and Armini serve a similar purpose. Yet, like those slightly raised reflectors running alongside the dotted yellow line, even the middle leaves some room to stick out. Without going too far leftfield, Me and Armini manages to reshape the mold ever so slightly, thanks to some savvy production choices that keep the songs from becoming too dull.
"Birds", for example, begins as yet another introspective fingerpicked bore before it's transformed by an unexpected space-rock interlude. "Heard It All Before" is a torch song set against a strikingly off-beat backing track, a bit like "Summertime" by way of recent Radiohead. "Ha Ha" occupies rueful territory not unlike that occupied by glum queen Lisa Germano, with Torrini milking her voice for maximum breathiness, while the stacked vocals that kick in half way through "Beggar's Prayer" save the song. The cool studio tomfoolery of "Dead Duck" subsumes, chops up, and spits out Torrini's vocals like they're just another instrument swimming in the mix.
It's not all interesting, however. Songs like those are countered by tracks like the insufferable "Big Jumps" and "Jungle Drum", each featuring annoying onomatopoetic ticks that come off more cute than clever and cast far too much attention on some terrible lyrics (at least the latter ends with some raucous guitar and tops off at barely two minutes long). Elsewhere, the milquetoast ska of the title track plays it too safe, sounding like Morcheeba a decade late, while "Hold Heart" recedes further into the background by going the banal bossa nova route.
But for all its various and relatively varied highs and low, towering above the record is the snarling, ear-catching and miraculously not totally out of place "Gun", a song that drips with tension, atmosphere, and Serge Gainsbourg-meets-Polly Harvey cool, earning extra points for steadily, perversely inching toward a huge release that never arrives. It's a remarkable little dirge, all bared teeth menace that makes you wish the rest of the album had more bite. It's enough to perk you up from your skim latte and wonder what the hell it was you just heard before turning your attention back to perusing the morning paper.
