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| May.06 Cover - Imogen Heap |
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| Written by Jeff Clark | |
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Page 1 of 3  The Future Is NowImogen Heap Embraces The Changing World Of Music At this point, you can't help but be impressed by Imogen Heap. But honestly, she's not someone I'd given more than a nanosecond of thought toward prior to last year. Arriving with an annoyance of industry hype, her first album, 1998's i Megaphone, struck me as melodramatic, coldly produced teen-Tori. Her US label, Almo Sounds, went paws up soon after, and I swiftly dismissed her to the littered scrap-basket of forgotten '90s year-of-the-woman non-sensations. Yeah, I'm a pig. I was similarly not all that blown away in 2004 by the cutesy indie-youth flick Garden State but one thing it did right was make poignant use of pop music a la Wes Anderson or Cameron Crowe, and as the film fades and Garden State's credits begin to roll, one of the most effective songs on the soundtrack is playing. It is called "Let Go," by a duo called Frou Frou. Turns out it had been released on an album two years prior by the group, which consisted of Heap and electronica producer Guy Sigsworth. Curious... The first song I heard from Speak For Yourself, Heap's second solo album, was "Hide and Seek." Now this is pretty weird, I thought. It's only her voice, nothing more, except for various electronic manipulations and multiplications. With evocative words that seem to paint the aftermath of mass devastation or perhaps just the collapse of one single relationship, the song surrounds you with haunting sublimity. Parallel to how "Let Go" bypassed boring corporate radio to reach eager ears, "Hide and Seek" debuted last spring during a scene on the FOX teen soap The OC, which I've never watched, but the ensuing iTunes buzz about the track goes to show, again, just how much impact astute song-placement is having these days. Stuck amongst syncopated, bleeping pop songs on Speak For Yourself, "Hide and Seek" certainly stands out. Aside from it and the closing piano balled "The Moment I Said It," which leaves you shivering by the lengthy fade-out, most of Heap's new album consists of bouncy, flirtatiously danceable electro-pop, humming and thumping in patterns that coalesce into pleasing if rather light combinations. It's chick-pop of varying degrees of effectiveness, but it is quite crafty, especially when you consider that Heap wrote, produced and - aside from a handful of brief guests, including Jeff Beck on the ecstatically giddy "Goodbye and Go" - performed it all herself. It's a testament to the modern possibilities of musical technology. Of course, it wouldn't matter a whit if Heap weren't such a prodigiously talented woman. Raised in Essex and classically trained on piano and other instruments as a child, she began writing songs as a pre-teen and immersed herself in computerized compositional and editing technology later while attending boarding school. By age 17 she was already signed and made her live debut - in a coup arranged by her management team at the time - sandwiched between Eric Clapton and The Who at the 1996 Prince's Trust Concert in London's Hyde Park. Quite a heap to live up to, and if it's taken her a while to come into her own with Speak For Yourself (released last July in the UK, and in November in the States), well for cryin' out loud, she's still only 27! Aside from her determination in taking complete control of the creative process for the album, she and manager Mark Wood established an independent label, Megaphonic Records, to release it (they've since licensed it to RCA in the States and another Sony division in England). Asked by Stomp and Stammer if she considers herself a control freak, the whip-smart and completely charming Heap laughs that "I think I'm just very protective over the things I love. And I really, really love this album, and I wasn't prepared to let anything bad happen to it. In the past I have kind of blamed lots of people for things not happening, and partly it's been their fault, and partly it's been my fault. But I didn't want to go through another few years of being bitter about something not happening because somebody didn't do the right job." |
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