The Colorist Orchestra & Emiliana Torrini have releaased their collaborative self-titled live album, out now via Rough Trade / Remote Control.
The Colorist Orchestra is a Belgian ensemble founded by Aarich Jespers and Kobe Proesmans in 2013. They re-envision the repertoires of established musicians from across genres using traditional classical instruments and arrangements, along with a variety of their own musical inventions to contribute innovative, never-before-heard sounds and grooves to their compositions and re-compositions.
Emilíana stopped working with her band 2 years ago, and instead played with whoever contacted her. Those adventures led her to play with gypsies in Cordoba, with an experimental jazz band in Berlin and she performed two sold out shows with the 60 piece Icelandic symphony orchestra in Reykjavík to name a few. When Jespers and Proesmans, fans of Torrini’s rich catalogue, invited her to collaborate on a series of live concerts, she was intrigued, and asked them to re-compose one of her songs to see what their concept was all about. The result, a wholly novel rendition of ‘Animal Games’ from her most recent album Tookah convinced Torrini that working with the group was a creative opportunity that she shouldn’t dare miss.
Although The Colorist Orchestra had initially planned to “re-color” only seven of Torrini’s songs, she was so enthralled by what she’d heard that she convinced them to work with her on fifteen of her previously-released tracks. Jespers and Proesmans pulled together a new eight-piece ensemble to create live re-envisionings of the works.
The group created a new world out of the music, and while Torrini admitted that she could barely recognise many of her own songs in the rearrangements, the collaboration came together organically and beautifully. Torrini’s talent elevates The Colorist Orchestra’s creativity, and the group help her rediscover the joy and the power within her own songs and within new light.
Two brand-new Emiliana Torrini songs debut on this album: ‘Nightfall,’ written by Kid Koala and Torrini; and ‘When We Dance,’ written by Jespers, Proesmans, and Torrini. The latter reflects the musical chemistry the three musicians developed during the process of rehearsal and performance for the Colorist concerts.
Emiliana Torrini was a member of GusGus, and has written/produced/performed numerous songs and hits with the likes of Kylie Minogue, Thievery Corporation, Bill Callahan and more. She had a #1 hit in a few countries with the song ‘Jungle Drum’ and in Germany it stayed in the #1 position for nine weeks. Torrini also contributed a song to the multi-platinum Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers Soundtrack. Her debut album was released in 1999 and was followed by three more critically acclaimed titles, the most recent being Tookah, in 2013.
