"I'm a drama queen. I'm always imagining things. When I was twelve I saw a cocktail dress that I wanted, and I pictured myself in the dress, running through a field with music playing. My mom said no; but in the end, I got the dress and went to a field, took my shoes off and started running...and nothing happened. I went home and I just cried."

In addition to her vivid imagination, a slightly nomadic childhood and a curious blend of ethnicities combined to inevitably launch 21 year-old singer Emiliana Torrini into the life less ordinary that she now calls her own. Raised in Iceland by an Icelandic mother and an Italian father, she spent summers with her grandmother in a remote corner of Eastern Iceland, and also resided with her uncle in Germany. As a youngster, she was given only a cursory introduction to music: a bit of classical, Italian pop and Icelandic folk songs.

Not surprisingly, on her gorgeous debut album, Love In The Time Of Science, it is her spirited personality--rather than any obvious musical influence--that first draws the listener in. With palpable conviction and a composure that belies her age, she relates tales of emotional isolation. On the album’s opening track “Free,” she sings ("If it's so good being free, would you mind telling me, why I don't know what to do with myself?") and on “Unemployed in Summertime” her youthful capriciousness is captured through carefree lyrics such as ("Unemployed in summer time, don't need money 'cause we're young"). Throughout the record, one gets a sense of Emiliana's underlying vulnerability and bemusement, but it never gives in to hopelessness.

"The album is melancholy, but it's warm and happy sounding," she explains. "When you're doing your first album, you always come to it with so much innocence; you don't really know anything. You're just doing exactly what you do. I think the first album is always the most sincere one, and then you start developing."
"Sometimes the lyrics are exaggerated," she continues. "I've always been a compulsive exaggerator. I don't know WHAT is really true."

With production by Tears For Fears' Roland Orzabal-they met through a mutual friend at venerable British label One Little Indian—Love In The Time Of Science sounds startlingly mature for a first outing.

Curiously enough, Emiliana had barely known of Tears For Fears ("I had heard, like, one song," she admits,) but, although an initial attempt at writing together didn't work, the decision to have him produce was clearly the right one. Throughout the record, lush, magnificent soundscapes roll effortlessly into jazzy grooves, and the songs have an almost epic sonic quality, without being bombastic or overblown. Most importantly, the music's dramatic turns perfectly compliment Emiliana's unique vocal histrionics.

"I just love singing," she offers with unabashed enthusiasm. "I think it's the best thing in the world." Though Emiliana admits to being exceedingly shy, she has nevertheless been playing to capacity audiences throughout Europe, and her shows regularly see fans turned away at the door. She even performed for 10,000 people at London's Royal Albert Hall, opening for Sting.

"I have a very big problem with shyness," she confesses. "But I love playing live. Because even though you're shy, you are still telling people something; but you're not having to be intimate.” Of course, her quickly escalating popularity may soon force her to have to overcome her shyness. "I'm not scared of that," she insists. "There's just more to deal with, and you learn to deal with it. I don't think it will be a problem."