Exuding her quirky Icelandic charm, it didn’t take long for Emiliana Torrini to lighten the atmosphere in a somewhat sticky and close church venue in Kemp Town.

The show was billed as a warm-up gig for her Glastonbury appearance the following day but the Icelandic songstress wasn’t holding back, with a good hour and a half of excitedly received songs and banter.

At one point she asked, in German, for a glass of white wine, to which a backing musician added “Me too – and a burger”.

The performance, featuring several tracks from her most recent album Tookah, was dotted with quips and anecdotes from Torrini, who spent a good part of her multi-faceted career living in Brighton.

The evening was beautifully paced, with her characteristic mellow vocals drifting around the aisles and filling the church with sumptuous tunes and chord progressions.

The only drawback was the lack of clarity in the sound, which meant some lyrics were lost on their way up to the galleries. But those that did shine through showed why she is an artist in such demand.

“Life is just a flicker in the universe,” she sang. And what a wonderful shining light you are indeed.