Nedelle Torrisi’s last breakup was bad – “not throwing-clothes- out-of- a-window bad”, she laughs now, but gruelling enough to leave her feeling blue and alone in Los Angeles. “I was frustrated at the thought of starting over again, because it also dissolved the band we were in [Californian pop duo Cryptacize.] The silver lining was that I didn’t have to negotiate any musical decisions anymore.”
A few months later, the Sufjan Stevens and Ariel Pink collaborator found herself with a batch of “unhinged, romantic, boy-crazy songs” that seeped romance from beneath every airy stroke of keyboard, lush 90s-R&B- throwback vocal and crisp drum machine clap. The resulting album, Advice From Paradise, now re-released on Tin Angel Records, finds hope – revelling in the uncertainty, excitement and butterfly-flutter nerves of pulling yourself up from the ground and beginning again.

The daughter of a priest-turned- jazz drummer father and ex-nun turned pianist mum, Torrisi grew up in California steeped in music. Music was “a given, not a choice” in her house, she recalls fondly – “I chose the violin and my brother chose the clarinet, and we both studied the instruments into our twenties.”

That devotion pays off on Advice From Paradise, a record with whip-smart musicality to match its infectious heartbreak. Can’t Wait sees wailing twin guitars fade to a slow jam saunter with shades of Toni Braxton, singing about longing for someone in unrelenting rain. Double Horizon is a Beach House-ish harpsichord pop dream that Noisey called “sunshine-filled, poppy and blissful.” Don’t Play Dumb meanwhile is a tale of romantic game-playing set to gorgeous MIDI calypso synths and accompanied by a video that saw Nedelle cause trouble in a Target store – she and the clip’s director, Travis Peterson, were actually kicked out of the supermarket twice while trying to film.

Featuring contributions from Julia Holter and Dev Hynes, the album was recorded in two weeks with Haunted Graffiti member and former housemate Kenny Gilmore, with whom Nedelle “slept at the studio and worked all day until we became cross-eyed.” Then, disaster struck. “So, the album was missing in Russia for four months,” says Nedelle, incredibly. “The story is crazy, involving Russian friends, a nice taxi company, and a lot of luck, but we got it back!” It’s a good thing they did – moving and warm, Advice From Paradise is a sprawling pop paradise of its own, full of such insight into the trials and tribulations of the dating game, it came as no surprise to fans three years ago when Torrisi launched her own love advice column, (and now a video series, too) on advicefromparadise.com.