duggup

Artist: Imogen Heap
Website: www.imogenheap.com/ or www.myspace.com/imogenheap
Track Name: Hide And Seek
Playback: flash
Download?: No

Imogen Heap is one half of Frou Frou (the other half being Guy Sigsworth), Frou Frou were a band I discovered in 2005 when the totally disarming and thoroughly charming “Let Go” mugged me and took up what seemed like permanent residence in my brain (you have been warned). The song is still on my MP3 player bootup playlist and regularly captivates me anew and then hangs around in my head for a couple of weeks.

“Hide And Seek” comes from Ms. Heap’s recently released album “Speak For Yourself” a solo album by every definition, she recorded and produced the album by mortgaging her house. This track is just stunning a voice and a vocoder (oh and a train). That’s it. It can’t get much simpler and yet you can hear the work that went into making it look that easy.

Paul Irish over at Aurgasm did a great interview back in late 2005. Here is what was said about “Hide and Seek“…

It was a sweet how that song happened. I had had a really bad “day at the office” as my shiny new computer blew up on me. Real puff of smoke and sparks material. i was about to leave the studio defeated which is always a bad thing. Those days can spiral into weeks and it’s important to try to do at least one thing in a day you’re happy with. Out of the corner of my eye i spotted my harmonizer (a little box that you hook up to a keyboard via midi so you can play in the notes you want your voice to transpose to in real time). I hadn’t yet written anything with this piece of gear but had always wanted to do an acappella on this album. I powered it up and connected my microphone into the box and recorded the output to my minidisk.

The first thing i sung/played and four minutes later was and is the melody and harmony of the final version. Lyrically it wasn’t all there apart from “Where are we, what the hell is going on?” and some random lines but i had the idea of Hide and Seek a while beforehand. It was like magic. Just as i struck the last chord a train went by outside the window and you can hear this in the final version. There was something so special about this version I was gutted it had no lyrics really to speak of but every breath and chord of the demo i copied as best i could to get everything from that 2am moment onto the record. I love this song as it feels as if it’s not mine because it took so little time to finish as others take weeks, months! Feels like a gift.

There is something about Imogen Heap’s work that I find compelling. I look forward to the next track, I play them on long loops and I just don’t seem to get bored because there is always something new in there waiting to be found.

Here is the video clip that is hosted at YouTube.

UPDATE: Just found this Live version of “Hide & Seek” on You tube. Recorded at Studio 11 for Indie 103.1FM on september 2006….

Very Cool

thatch is fascinated by guitars, music, guitars, production, silly noises, guitars and used to be a musician. Did I mention the thing about the guitars?
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