The Friday Dispatch
Emilíana Torrini, Esme Emerson, Cigarettes After Sex, Blondie and Idaho
Walking down the wilder side with Emilíana Torrini
Emilíana Torrini never set out to make a record about Miss Flower. Geraldine Flower wasn’t a woman that Torrini had read about in a book or down a Wikipedia rabbit hole. She was simply the mother of Zoe, who’d become a close friend, together with her husband Simon Byrt, who co-wrote and played on several tracks from Torrini’s last solo album Tookah. On her visits to Byrt’s garden studio at the house in Chiswick, Torrini would often spend time with Geraldine in her rooms on the top floor, drinking G&Ts and listening to her stories – colourful tales of spicy flings, spontaneous adventures and skylarking through life, never compromising her freedom for the sake of a man’s comfort or convenience. But after Miss Flower’s death in 2019, these encounters — and the discovery of Miss Flower’s private letters and telegrams — pushed the Icelandic artist to embark on a four year-long-journey creating a concept-album chronicle of Geraldine Flower’s life of love.
Miss Flower was born in Sydney, Australia in 1947, but spent most of her adult life living in a terraced house in the west London suburb of Chiswick, raising her daughter Zoe alone. An innocuous enough setting that might imply she led a quiet life of convention, but, as Torrini portrays with loving care, nothing could be further from the truth. Miss Flower was a woman who loved adventure and lived on her own terms. She was never Mrs. Flower; of the nine proposals she received from men who were obsessed with her, only one came close to sealing the deal. She left him at the altar, and still he remained in her orbit. “She was like a Christmas tree, always gathering so many people around her,” recalls Torrini, “It’s quite rare to meet somebody so magnetic, who attracts people like a superstar.”
When Miss Flower passed away in the summer of 2019, Torrini took the first available flight from Iceland to be at Zoe’s side. Planning her memorial, the two came across a suitcase of telegrams and letters tucked away in Geraldine’s flat. Hundreds of them, some from friends but most from spurned lovers and would-be suitors. Men, it seems, were obsessed with Miss Flower, whose autonomy drove them to heartbreak and lust. Page after page, they spelled out their infatuations, forgetting themselves in the way that only the physical act of writing a letter can inspire. “I was a big letter writer when I was a kid,” says Torrini, recalling the long summers when she’d be sent to Germany to stay with an uncle and kept her best friend entertained by penning wildly untrue tales. These letters were then transformed into songs, the tracks that now make up Torrini’s new album, Miss Flowers.
“Reading Geraldine’s letters really reminded me how people are much more vulnerable and poetic in letters than in emails. I think that’s because when you’re writing an email, you’re constantly so aware that someone is going to read it. I think letters are also about trust, because when you write a letter you are trusting someone to be able to hold on to a piece of you. There’s a deeper connection, and I think it’s really beautiful.”
Esme Emerson are on the rise
Born and raised in Suffolk, Esme and Emerson Lee-Scott (known as a band by their stage name, Esme Emerson) are keeping it all in the family. The sibling duo just recently returned from tour stints with The Japanese House and Jasmine Jethwa and released their second EP, Big Leap, No Faith, Small Chance at the end of June.
Growing up between Colchester and Ipswich - “Ed Sheeran country,” as Emerson puts it - the pair spent their half-term breaks at a local studio for what they knew as ‘rock school.’ Together with a group of other kids, they would split into bands and spend a week working on one song. On Thursday they’d record, and by Friday it was time to perform it for their parents. “I think it always was this abstract, ‘How do you make a song?’ But that helped us realise that it can be silly and fun and kind of easy,” Emerson continues.
As the pair got older, Emerson went off to study music while Esme, who was four years younger, stayed home studying for her A Levels. But when Covid hit, the pair were brought back together again — and they were inseparable. “I just have memories of us sat at our kitchen table and just losing it. I don't think I did any work,” smiles Esme, reflecting on that pandemic spring/summer period. “The age gap had closed a lot so suddenly we were like best friends. I think it’s only grown from there. We do everything together.”
That sentiment was only strengthened after Emse posted on TikTok, dueting with another act’s clip. She was contacted by Infinite Future Management and production duo Future Cut, both enquiring if she had any music of her own. But when it came down to it, Esme decided she was better in a pair, and so she and Emerson began making music together.
Two EPs later, Esme Emerson have found a sound that is unpretentious, tender, and steeped in the kind of charm that only comes from something genuinely authentic. “You’re just meant to write what you feel and be honest and sincere,” says Esme. “Writing things that are sincere and honest is so rewarding and I feel like I’ve really fallen in love with that part of the songwriting process. I've just really dived head first into it.”
Cigarettes After Sex see their music as medicine
Cigarettes After Sex’s new album, X’s, unashamedly continues the American dream pop band’s tradition of sexual and romantic storytelling. Critics of the group and their discography have argued that, after years of releases, their sound has simply become one-dimensional and monotonous. But to Greg Gonzales, however, this misses the point. The music, he explains, was designed that way. It was meant to put you to sleep.
Having started making music when he was just 10 years old, Gonzales had experimented with various genres and instruments, including the organ. But eventually, he came to a point where he felt he had tried everything and yet still felt something was missing from the music he was making.
“I thought to myself: what’s the music you love the most? What’s the music that meant the most to you? What are your deepest influences? When I put it together it’s this music that I was talking about. I made a mix CD of everything that I thought was the most beautiful and thought about why it was on there.”
Gonzales came to the conclusion that he loved musicians that were “overly cohesive”, this laying the foundation for the trajectory of Cigarettes After Sex. Influenced by both the music of artists ranging from Ennio Morricone to Françoise Hardy and the words of poets like E. E. Cummings, Gonzales understood that the art he most connected with — and thus the art he wanted to make — was that which helped him face grief and heartbreak head on. He hoped that with Cigarettes After Sex, then, he could provide that comfort to others: “If you want something like us, you pick up any record by us and it's gonna be that deep romantic music that can be medicine.”
“Honestly, it was really deliberate,” he shares. “Going back to heartbreak, there were times where I was so distraught over someone, I remember my brain was going a thousand miles a minute. I remember being in bed, we’d broken up, I’d wanted them back, and I had no idea where they were. My head was like, where are they, who are they with, worried if they’re meeting someone new, getting really jealous. Your mind goes in these crazy circles. I didn’t know what to do so I would reach for albums that I had; really beautiful, mellow records.”
Three things to get excited about this week
The cover: The world has been, understandably, collectively freaking out over the release of The Bear season three. Just as great as the show itself are its infamous needle drops, and this season was no exception. In a particularly delightful surprise, the show featured a cover of The Beat’s “Save It For Later” by Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder.
The album: Last Friday, UK indie darling Liana Flores released her debut LP, Flower of the Soul. Blending 60s folk and bossa nova, the record dips in and out of whimsy and melancholy, creating a fantastical soundscape sure to captivate new and old fans alike.
The book: If you’re looking for a summer read, consider cracking open this time machine of a book, A Year With Swollen Appendicies: Brian Eno’s Diary. First released in the 90s and updated in 2021, the book takes readers through the life and provocative musings of the acclaimed experimental musician and founding member of Roxy Music.
Something Old, Something New
Every week, one of our writers or editors share their recommendations of two records they love - one from the past, one from the present. This week, Will Yarbrough on Blondie’s No Exit (1999) and Idaho’s Lapse (2024).
One way or another, Blondie were set on getting back together. Poor sales and infighting broke up the band in 1982, with the rocky personal relationship between Debby Harry and Chris Stein taking a nosedive shortly thereafter (though, notably, Harry still infamously took time off her solo career to care for Stein during a short illness). But when a new wave of female-fronted rock bands introduced them to the next generation of X-Offenders, the tide turned in favor of a comeback.
When No Exit arrived in 1999, the pop landscape had turned over in the 20 years since "Heart of Glass" topped the charts. Disco was dead, hair metal had lost its shine, and in their place had risen grunge, the Shiny Suit era and TRL. But Blondie weren't afraid to embrace the new trends. Out of this landscape was born No Exit, Blondie’s seventh studio album, which slipped out the gate with lead single "Screaming Skin", a carnivalesque exhibition that introduces the case for them as the kookiest punks to ever walk through CBGB.
The stylistic detours on No Exit don't stop there. Blondie steer with reckless abandon, veering from Eurodance to smooth jazz, rap-rock and bluegrass. Anyone who wants to rid the internet of 90s nostalgia will love the title track, which straps Coolio to a clunky, industrial beat that's forged from scraps of Bach and "In the Hall of the Mountain King". Somehow, the remix manages to turn this unfortunate collision into a full-blown train-wreck, tossing members of Wu-Tang and Mobb Deep into the fray. The video makes Harry look like a poorly disguised Russian spy. Clearly, Blondie hadn't lost their spunk.
But even if they strayed, Blondie didn’t entirely do away with the sounds that brough them to Number One. Burke's snappy backbeat, power-pop licks, a glistening keyboard, and Harry's stone-cold sex appeal were the hallmarks of all their greatest hits, and they found their place on No Exit, too.
"Maria,” for example, bore all the classic Blondie trademarks, making it a standout on No Exit. Stein's guitar slips and slides between Destri's bell chimes as if he's speeding to get to churn on time. Harry was a goddess, glowing like an icon when belting out the chorus: “Ave Maria / A million and one candle lights.” Indeed, the song put Blondie in rarified air, bringing them to number one and making them the only American act (aside from the King of Pop) to top the UK charts in three different decades.
Against those 1982 odds — and a remarkably contentious Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction speech — Blondie are still going. With famous cowrites from Charli XCX and a new album already scheduled for next year, don't be surprised if they return to making history once again.
They may have been slightly ahead of the curve, but at no point has Idaho ever been in a hurry. The slowcore pioneers drifted right alongside Low, Codeine and Red House Painters throughout the 90s. After the band dissolved into more of a solo endeavour, Jeff Martin (who had started Idaho in LA circa 1981 with a high-school classmate who's since passed away) still scraped off his custom four-string tenor every now and then for another solid decade. But with no new album in sight since 2011, it appeared as if Idaho had disappeared from the indie scene’s map.
I never thought I'd write this, but thank god for Instagram. When Los Angeles transplant Robby Fronzo offered to help complete the demos that Martin had been posting to his timeline, it reignited the band's collective spirit. That rekindling served as the spark for Idaho’s long awaited comeback album, Lapse.
On Lapse Fronzo and Martin are perfect compliments. Fronzo's woozy neck bends serve as kindling for "On Fire", which is chopped through with a classically grungy riff. "Break some records / Break a sweat", Martin mumbles, backed by a steadily plodding beat from Jeff Zimmitti, Idaho's long-time on-again, off-again drummer, "Before you're fucking dead”.
Lapse is deeply focused on Idaho's past. "West Side" dusts off a xylophone in waxing about Martin's teenage years in the Valley. "I'm so grateful to you / and your family, too," he sings about teenage parties "chaperoned" by LA parents. The songs don't take any stylistic detours. If anything, Martin has actually slowed his roll by turning down the amps. Even "Snakes", a song about a poisoned friendship, sinks its teeth awfully slow. But this album is worth your time. Martin never sounds like he's stuck in the past. Instead, these songs bloom to life with a newfound sense of appreciation. "I'll make it up to you, somehow", he sings in tribute to the late great Peter Freeman, who nearly became Idaho's bassist in the 2000s.
With a documentary and box set to go along with the new album, Idaho are carrying on the only way they know how: slow and steady.
Listen to the week in new music by following our Discovery playlist
Dropping at midnight every Thursday, follow our playlist for a taste of the best new music from the most exciting breaking artists – 20 new tracks, top-loaded from the last five days in music and on repeat in the Best Fit office right now.
Leading the selection this week are new tracks from Human Interest, Alessi Rose, GEL, Adult DVD and coverstar Chloe Qisha.
wow, emilíana torrini is sooo good