Ambitious Generation, Mixed Results: Imogen Heap’s Sparks!

The Good: Duration, Voice, Overall sound
The Bad: Utter lack of distinction for most of the tracks (over-familiar)
The Basics: If Sparks were Imogen Heap’s only album, it might have been a masterpiece, but for fans, it will simply seem like more of the same . . .


It is never a good sign when, halfway through my first listen of an album, I find myself asking “Have I heard and reviewed this album before?” Yet, such is how it was with Sparks, the latest album from Imogen Heap. To cut to the chase, the fundamental problem with Sparks is that the album is entirely familiar to anyone who has heard any other full album by Imogen Heap. The creation of the album, a factor I never consider when I review the resulting art, was the result of an ambitious creative concept. Unfortunately, what Imogen Heap ended up producing was an album that might feature more samples than her prior album, Ellipse (reviewed here!), but it lacks a single. After eight listens to the album, I could not relate a single tune; they are all that indistinct.

I write this as one who has largely enjoyed the prior works of Imogen Heap. I have a very positive association with the music of Imogen Heap; a friend of mine tuned me in to Speak For Yourself (reviewed here!) at a time when it completely spoke to all I was going through. So, when I finally got my hands on Sparks, I found myself disappointed. I knew of the existence of Sparks from when Imogen Heap first started plugging her super-deluxe boxed set, but it took until the holidays for me to actually get my hands on it. When the most favorable thing I can say about an album is, “I’m glad I did not shell out for the super-fan version,” it’s a pretty sad commentary.

With fourteen tracks, clocking out at 59:34, Sparks is an album that is the result of Imogen Heap pushing herself to create tracks on a specific timeline with sound clips provided to her by her fans. The result is an album that sounds like Heap’s other albums, but with some auditory “found art” mixed in. In pushing herself to make the album this way, Imogen Heap made some songs that lack real thematic resonance – her song “Telemiscommunication” about calling a partner while at an airport is the pop music equivalent of a comedian’s “What’s with airline food” type joke and “The Listening Chair” is little more than a list of activities that occupy her day – and have almost no replayability. For all of the tools at her disposal, Sparks is entirely the responsibility of the artist Imogen Heap. She wrote all the lyrics, composed all of the music, and produced the album. Outside having guest vocalists on two of the tracks, Imogen Heap provides all of the lead vocals as well. In many ways, Sparks is a resounding success of artistic integrity and independence from the corporate machine.

Unfortunately, outside a few moments of intro or outro on a track, Sparks is largely made up of indistinct music that blends together track to track. There is not a single memorable tune on the album (I cringe to think what the instrumental-only version of the songs sounds like) and were it not for the exceptionally loud chord at the end of “Propeller Seeds” (seriously, it woke up my sleeping cats each time it hit!), one would not know where the album began or ended when they play it on continual replay. While the album opens with the piano-driven “You Know Where To Find Me,” the song is not one of Imogen Heap’s more memorable tunes and the album soon devolves into deep chords and synth instrumentals accompanying the true instrument on the album: Imogen Heap’s voice. The only real exception is the string accompaniment on “Xizi She Knows,” but the Chinese instrumental accompaniment only seems to be present for the opening and closing of the song, sublimated the rest of the track by the other elements mixed in.

Imogen Heap’s voice on Sparks is predictably wonderful. Heap has incredible vocal range, going from her husky low vocals at one moment to her soaring soprano in the same song. Imogen Heap is articulate and easily understood on Sparks, making it easy to fall in love with the sound of her voice; fortunately, she produces the album so her vocals dominate even the Electronica instrumentation on songs like “Entanglement.” But even there, Imogen Heap’s vocals sound breathy and familiar, like we’ve heard the lines before, even when they are all new (“Entanglement” seems like a b-side from Ellipse).

Sparks suffers on the lyrical front because Imogen Heap presents an album where she is making random statements and stringing them together. The album lacks a sense of cohesion; instead, it is a collection of murky singles that blend from one to another. Outside the delightful, overt, sexuality of “Entanglement,” Heap does not land a statement that both sounds good as poetry and is musically interesting. Imogen Heap continues to have moments of amazing poetry, with a high level of diction like “Adventures in the multiverse / effervescent candlelit closeness / Plus, I feel like I've just got the hang of this living thing” (“Lifeline”).

Sadly, songs like “The Listening Chair” early on the album make it hard to want to continue to listen to Sparks. When Heap sings “”I can moonwalk, build castles, play ping pong, talk to animals, / hold my breath for a really long time…and tell the future / Are just six of the things I can do / And the more I can fit of these things in my day / The better I sleep at night (“The Listening Chair”), it is hard for listeners not to cringe. The song is like the Family Guy joke where Stephen King pitches a book based on what he sees in front of him at a pitch meeting. By the time Imogen Heap sings the storysong aspects like “Wonder bra thrown ‘round the German classroom / You wouldn’t understand / I’ll never live it down” (“The Listening Chair”), most listeners will have given up on the track.

Unfortunately, Sparks does not get better as it goes along. Despite a slightly different sound for the opening of “Run-Time,” listeners are greeted with the lines “Sparks might fly, in no time. / It’s a delayed reaction of the third kind” (“Run-Time”), which are not Imogen Heap’s best.

And that’s pretty much the epitaph of Sparks: it’s not Imogen Heap’s best. Even if this were my first experience with Imogen Heap and the music did not sound so familiar to me, I suspect I would be disappointed by the lack of thematic resonance and intrigue that her other albums have had in spades.

The best track is “Entanglement,” the low point is the (mostly) spoken-word “Neglected Space.”

For other new music, please visit my reviews of:
Sucker - Charli XCX
Little Secret - Nikki Yanofsky
Nostalgia - Annie Lennox

3.5/10

For other music reviews, please check out my Music Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Icon Is A New Compilation Of Old Imogen Heap Songs Few Have Heard!

The Good: Vocals are very true, Some interesting music, Duration isn't horrible.
The Bad: No hooks, Not the most compelling writing from Heap, No noticeable difference between Heap and Frou Frou.
The Basics: My wife's gift of the Imogen Heap and Frou Frou compilation Icon was not unappreciated, but it lacks the interesting singles that make me want to hold onto it.


Today, I have a new rule for myself. For those who do not follow my many music reviews, I have a system for purchasing music and it is remarkably simple. I will not buy an album unless I have heard and thoroughly enjoyed three singles from it. A while back, I made an exception to that rule. I had just gotten my first MP3 player and I was excited to learn about how things like iTunes worked, so I bought a copy of Imogen Heap's brand new (at the time) album Ellipse (reviewed here!). My wife noticed that and figured I truly loved the music of Imogen Heap, especially as I had alluded to a sweet and sad song on Hide And Seek (reviewed here!) to her before. So, when the local Borders was going out of business and my wife was pawing through all of the music which was severely discounted and still around, she leapt upon the chance to surprise me with a new album by Imogen Heap and Frou Frou, Icon. It was a sweet gesture and after a month and a half of it sitting around unopened, I finally cracked it open and began listening to it. I am reminded why I have my three-single to buy rule.

The other notable aspect of Icon is that this is my first experience with Heap's band (a duo group with Guy Sigsworth), Frou Frou. It leads me to wonder yet again why people who are successful with another insist on going solo (Rob Thomas, I'm still glaring at you!). There is no discernible difference in the style or quality of music produced by Imogen Heap on her own versus as Frou Frou. Regardless of the lack of differences, this does not sell me on buying up all of the early works of Imogen Heap.

With only twelve tracks, clocking out at 55:32, Icon seems to be the musical vision of Imogen Heap. Heap wrote (or co-wrote, for tracks 2, 7 - 12) all of the songs on the compilation. Heap performs all of the lead vocals on the album and as a member of Frou Frou, she is credited as a co-producer of those tracks. Given how most of the music has a music board creation feel to it (as opposed to artists playing instruments), it is hard to hold it against Heap that she does not play any of the instruments. This appears to be the young musical vision of Imogen Heap.

That vision is pleasantly variable, but it lacks anything truly memorable. She starts off the compilation - which honestly does not have the "assembled" feeling of most compilation albums - with the rock/pop "Angry Angel," which seems like it would be a Goth favorite. It moves into the dissonant, cacophonic sound of "Getting Scared," which has a more Techno, poseur-Goth feel to it, though Heap sings with a real angry passion appropriate to the lyrics and sound of the song. The album goes into more melodic pop with songs like "Oh Me, Oh My" and Heap has a truly beautiful ballad with "Candlelight." The Frou Frou half of the album is more traditional pop rock and I will confess that after eight listens to the entire album, I have found "It's Good To Be In Love" running through my head.

Instrumentally, the diversity of Icon is limited more by the synthesizer and heavy drum combo popular with dance music than by the style those instruments are going for. Imogen Heap borders on trip-hop pop with "Shine" and uses similar instruments in almost entirely different style for "Hear Me Out." The album sounds good to the ear, but the only one that stands apart from the occasionally overbearing audio mash is "Candlelight," which has Heap backed by a sole piano.

Vocally, Icon is a treat to those tired of the same, largely overproduced female vocalists that dominate what is left of the Top 40 stations. Even Heaps later albums, which have suffered because it is unclear how much of the vocals is Imogen Heap and how much is the production elements that accent those vocals, have less authentic-sounding vocals than on Icon. Heap lets her voice soar naturally from alto to the soprano ranges on "Come Here Boy" before production elements hit in the refrain to blend more with the album's instrumentation.

What undersold this compilation for me was the lyrics. Imogen Heap first came to my attention from a friend who knew I was going through a rough breakup. She let me listen to "Hide And Seek" and encouraged me to have a good cry through the imagery of loss and abandonment that song possessed. There are no truly amazing lines on the songs on Icon that would have done that for me. Indeed, only "Candlelight" has even interesting emotion and images to the lines. With lines like "I am alone, surrounded by / The colour blue / Inside a poem, the only / Words I ever knew / Washing my hands, of the / Many years untold / For now I am banned, my / Future is to unfold" ("Candlelight"), the song manages to resonate in an emotional way, but it is the exception to the rule on this album.

Sadly, the rule for Icon is more like "Come Here Boy" or "Angry Angel." While "Angry Angel" opens with evocative imagery - "This is an obsession, a kind of agression with himself / It's the way he'll always be / He loves to rebel to go against his ten commandments / For him, thats just being free. / And he always will, get his thrills, the only way he knows how / Well it might make you frown / But he does the love, being that dove, roaming where he cares to go / To a state of mind that no-one knows" - it quickly degenerates into repeating its title. Similarly, long strains of "Come Here Boy" are just Imogen Heap slowly wailing out that title over and over again.

With Frou Frou and the writing duties, presumably, split, Icon does not explode into anything more relevant. Lines like "Snap out of it / Do just what I tell you / And no one will get hurt / Don't come any closer" ("Psychobabble") are hardly going to set the world on fire, but they are better than most lines from pop-rock music today.

Ultimately, this might be a treat for fans of Imogen Heap who would buy her albums blind, but for those more discriminating, it is a much tougher sell. The best track is "Candlelight," the low point is the utterly unmemorable "Must Be Dreaming."

For other intriguing female artists, please check out my reviews of:
South - Heather Nova
Bomb In A Birdcage - A Fine Frenzy
Many Great Companions - Dar Williams

5/10

For other music reviews, please be sure to check out my index page by clicking here!

© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


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Well Worth The Listen And The Buy, Ellipse By Imogen Heap Now Rocks My IPod!

The Good: Impressive and almost entirely unique musical sound, Most of the lyrics
The Bad: Duration, Some less inspired lyrics
The Basics: Originality blends with mediocrity on Imogen Heap's Ellipse, an arguably wonderful album brought down by a few cliches.


For those who do not check such things - as I seldom do when they do not pertain to me - I recently came into possession of an Ipod Touch (reviewed here!). When that happened, I was granted an opportunity to try a few things that I had never had a chance to do before. The first of these opportunities was to try a digital download of an album. I was excited, in no small part because it meant that I would not have to go through the labor of copying the c.d. into MP3 format, it would come appropriately configured from the beginning. So, when I looked through the iTunes store and had a chance to select, I picked Ellipse by Imogen Heap.

Imogen Heap is a fairly obscure British musical artist whose work I was introduced to over a year ago by a dear friend who moved away. She had Heap's album Speak For Yourself (reviewed here!) and while I enjoyed it, it was only recently I actually began craving it. My wife, it turns out, listens to me extraordinarily well and as a result bought me a copy of that album for my impending birthday. So, I decided to go and see what Heap has been up to since and I bought her new album Ellipse.

With twenty-six songs clocking out at 97:30 (as a digital download, the same amount spread over two discs on c.d. at the thirteen song mark), the two-disc Ellipse is distinctly the work of artist Imogen Heap. The album, which is characterized as an "electronic" album, is the creative concept and execution of Imogen Heap. Heap wrote all of the lyrics and she programmed all of the instruments. As well, Imogen Heap is the sole credited producer of the album, so it is hard to argue that this is anything but the intended musical vision of Heap herself.


That musical vision is eclectic, though it is not an incredibly audacious album. Ellipse has moments - the first single "First Train Home" being a perfect example - where it is a very traditional pop-dance album. But beyond that, the songs are interesting and populated by produced bells and keyboards. "Wait It Out" is a more traditional pop ballad, but even the socially conscious "Bad Body Double" which has great lyrics sounds very typical pop/techno. Even so, songs like "Tidal" use a wide array of instrumental sounds (given that it is all produced, it is tough to call it an actual instrument, though it sounds like flutes at times) and Imogen Heap's Ellipse is easy to listen to and enjoy.

Instrumentally, the most creative track might well be "Aha!" "Aha!" features rapidly moving low strings creating a spooky bassline (very Stanislas) and Heap's vocals coming out more as a moan, which enhances the creepy vibe of the song. "Aha!" has a very untraditional, but classical (as in Classical music) sound to it. In this way, Imogen Heap is incredibly creative even when she still has songs like "Earth" which is a very simple pop-dance number and "Little Bird" which is a slow, quiet ballad in a surprisingly boring tradition.

Vocally, Imogen Heap probably would have scored higher if I had less experience with musical artists. Heap has a great soprano voice, but she uses it in ways that are either entirely original or sadly derivative. So, for example, on "Tidal," Heap's vocals go for lower and more powerful, instantly evoking the sound of Annie Lennox from her album Songs Of Mass Destruction. By contrast, on "Swoon," she sings high and fast and the song is delightfully original. Inarguably, she has a great voice and on Ellipse, she allows it to be heard. Unlike songs on Speak For Yourself, she does not rely on production elements to alter her vocals and she has a beautiful, natural voice.

That voice articulates her own lyrics wonderfully, though with a noticeable British accent. Ellipse is a decently-diverse album as far as the content of the songs go, though it does seem to be more intended for adults than children. Heap unabashedly explores sexuality on songs like "Swoon" and "Between Sheets." She has a healthy expression of desire and she is playful when she sings out "You and me between sheets / It just doesn't get better than this / The many windswept yellow Stickies of my mind / Or the molten, emotional front line / I couldn't care less I'm transfixed in this absolute bliss" ("Between Sheets"). She is fun, free and at the same time emotionally involved.

Rather impressively, Imogen Heap also sings about issues like distorted body image ("Bad Body Double") and the excitement of being alive being crushed by infidelity ("Aha!"). But most of the songs are about love and relationships and fulfilling desires, which makes her more musically audacious songs seem more standard. The lyrics actually have the effect of making the songs seem more average than they might otherwise be.

That said, Heap has an astonishing ability for imagery. When she sings about wrestling with issues of fate, she makes it picturesque and melodical. Her lines "First the Earth was flat / But it fattened up when we didn't fall off / Now we spin laps around the Sun / Oh the gods lost 2-1 / The host of Heaven pointed out to us from lightyears away / We're surrounded by a billion galaxies / Things are not always, things are not always how they seem / Will you be ready" ("2-1")? Outside the repetition at the end of the song, "2-1" is poetic and well-constructed and makes for a song that is not the typical Top 40 pop rock.

At the end of Ellipse, that is what one is left with. It is easy to recommend the album because Imogen Heap is creating something unlike anything anyone else is producing now. But at the same time, where one song is instrumentally fresh, it seems to be lyrically or vocally stunted. Or, for example, where "Half Life" is lyrically powerful with its musical storysong of trying to figure out the science of love and relationships, it is musically pedestrian with a very traditional piano sound and Heap's vocals sound light and airy in a way that is very girlish. The album is erratic and while it has a good number of hits where Heap gets things right, she has at least as many where the album falls flat.

On disc 1, "The Fire" stands out as an instrumental track played on piano with a simulated fire. The disc 2 version of "The Fire" is just the sounds of a fire crackling and that is unimpressive at best. The first disc in this two-disc set is identical and the second disc, outside the fire noises for "The Fire" are the same songs as disc one, stripped of their vocals and lyrics.

It is easy to recommend the two-disc version of Ellipse because Imogen Heap is creating something unlike anything anyone else is producing now and her music is actually quite stunning. Still, where one song is instrumentally fresh, it seems to be lyrically or vocally stunted. Or, for example, where "Half Life" is lyrically powerful with its musical storysong of trying to figure out the science of love and relationships, it is musically pedestrian with a very traditional piano sound and Heap's vocals sound light and airy in a way that is very girlish. The album is erratic and while it has a good number of hits where Heap gets things right, she has at least as many where the album falls flat.

The best songs are "Bad Body Double" (Disc 1) and "Aha!" (Disc 2) the low points are the less memorable lullaby "Little Bird" (Disc 1) and "The Fire" (Disc 2).

For other strong female artists, please check out my reviews of:
Timbre - Sophie B. Hawkins 
Left Of The Middle - Natalie Imbruglia
Laws Of Illusion - Sarah McLachlan


7.5/10

For other music reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Growing On Me With Each Listen, Imogen Heap Encourages One To Speak For Yourself!

The Good: Excellent lyrics, Moments of voice
The Bad: Almost universally vocally and musically overproduced, Short
The Basics: A fair album slightly above the average, Speak For Yourself gets a weak recommend based on lyrical strength and vocal potential.


Sharing music, like cooking for someone, is an act of love in my book. It might not be the most profound expression of love, but there is a power to music that is very real and true and especially as adults when music resonates with us enough that we want to share it, it is an act of affection. Music that has an effect on us we share because we hope it will affect those in our lives and there is a level of caring with that for many people. We want to enlighten, express and emote often when we share music.

So, when I was loaned a copy of Imogen Heap's Speak For Yourself and told how amazing it was, when it started with beeps, chirps and nothing resembling an actual musical instrument, my heart took a bit of a dive. After all, how could a friend have so missed my personality as to subject me to some silly pop? She had specifically recommended the track "Hide And Seek," which I played about twenty times before giving this album a pure listen. While I could instantly hear the brilliance and intrigue in "Hide And Seek," I was put off by the fact that Imogen Heap's voice was filtered through extensive production elements such that the vocals and the synths blended. Hearing the track, I instantly wished for an acoustic version of the song.

Speak For Yourself is a twelve-track 49:36 album by Imogen Heap, a pop-rock artist whose works might be considered alternative in that she has a very different sound than anyone else. She trends - on Speak For Yourself toward the dance/techno aspects of pop with lyrical sensibilities far more erudite and impressive than anything I've ever heard in those genres. The result is an album that is heavily produced but says something, an aural combination of Moby and Evanescence, probably most analogous to Dido. Imogen Heap presents music that sounds like what Ace of Bass would if their material had been written by Heather Nova. In other words, Imogen Heap sounds like herself; she's a tough nut to crack, though she's better than Bjork and probably more traditionally pop-dance than anything else.

The superlative factor of Speak For Yourself is the lyrics. My friend who introduced me to the music of Imogen Heap knew that "Hide And Seek" would resonate with me (bad breakup time) and the truth is she was absolutely right. After all, anyone going through abandonment issues is likely to appreciate lines like "Oily marks appear on walls / Where pleasure moments hung before / The takeover / The sweeping insensitivity of this still life . . . Blood and tears / They were here first . . ." ("Hide And Seek"). And the song takes an abrupt left turn with the accusatory questions, "Mm What d'ya say? / O that you only meant well, well of course you did . . . And you decided this" ("Hide And Seek") and it is wonderful and wrenching and horrible in its expressiveness. Great poetry does that.

And as much as the sound of the album initially put me off (right now "I Am In Love With You" is playing and it sounds like it was assembled by a computer), I have to admit that the Imogen Heap can write. She wrote and produced the entire album, so this is very much her creative vision and she does seem to have something to say. In fact, while "Hide And Seek," a breakup song, was what I was lured into the album with, I've been debating putting "Goodnight And Go" as the best track on the album. Far more fun, it is a song about fantasizing about the possibilities with wonderful lines like, "One of these days / You'll miss your train / And come stay with me / (It's always say goodnight and go) / We'll have drinks and talk about things / Any excuse to stay awake with you / You'll sleep here, I'll sleep there / But then the heating may be down . . ." ("Goodnight And Go"). Heap has a sense of fun that makes simple lines work and she has a playful storytelling style that works as well.

And it's rare to have a song that so focuses on resisting touch, but Imogen Heap does that - and well - with "The Walk." Rather cleverly she constructs a song about attempting to keep things as just friends with tension-filled lines like, "I feel a weakness coming on / It's not meant to be like this / Not what I planned at all . . . Stop that now / You're as close as it gets without touching me / Oh no, don't make it harder / Than it already is / . . . Freeze or make it forever / . . . It's just what I don't need" ("The Walk"). Imogen Heap writes about love, loss, the end of relationships and much on temptation.

And for the most part, she sings about these things rather well. If one seems to equivocate when penning an opinion on the vocals, it is for the simple reason that it is difficult to determine how much of Heap's voice comes through on the album. It appears that she has an impressive range from soprano and alto down into the tenor range.

The problem is, how much of her actual voice comes through is a bit of a mystery. Tracks like "Hide And Seek" and the album opener, "Headlock" have clear vocal production elements that obscure or enhance the singer's natural voice. "Hide And Seek" is entirely presented with heavy reverb and a downgrading morph in the voice that translates her sound into a computerized vocalization that has a mechanic sound to it. An acoustic version might not make the lyrics clearer - indeed even with the production elements transforming her voice, the words are all perfectly clear - but they would strengthen the emotions of the piece. Or, at the very least, it would have a different feel.

The exception to the vocal overproduction comes only at the end of the album when Imogen Heap loses the production elements for "The Moment I Said It." On this track, Heap presents her voice as that of a clear alto/soprano with the ability to hit the high notes and sing a musical story in a way that is emotive. The song is also one of the slower ones on the album and it catches the ear for both of those reasons.

For the rest of the listening experience, though, the listener tends to be overwhelmed by the sound of the music presented. Far from being as emotive or expressive as the lyrics might make one think - if they read the lines to the album before listening to it - the music is produced electronic music, pop riffs and synthesized basslines and percussion.

On songs like "Goodnight And Go," Heap produces the song to accent a young and peppy feel using higher, faster instrumentation, though the album credits remarkably few musicians. The point, of course, is that this is music assembled on a computer or a mixing board more than in front of an orchestra or band.

And it is fine for what it is. If one likes that sort of thing. Singing about rushing into relationships might not be the best utilization for a dance track beat, though. And while keeping a fantasy like "Goodnight And Go" light and upbeat might very well show as well as it tells, in the context of Speak For Yourself, it undermines the point because it follows a song that begins with computerized beeps and whistles and precedes another more techno track. In other words, it becomes hard to take some of Imogen Heap's songs seriously based on how they sound.

"Clear The Area" and "Closing In" could have been done by Ace Of Bass and that's no an insult, but rather a rather accurate way to describe this album. If one enjoys that style of music, this sugary pop sound works. Given the quality of the lyrics, I found myself wanting more from the sound of Imogen Heap. The thing is, the album continued to grow on me up until the moment I returned it to my friend and that, too, says something about its actual quality. I suppose this might be the album for those of us skeptical about the quality of techno/alternative pop should listen to because it makes it instantly impossible to dismiss on the quality of the content (lyrics).

And ultimately, it sounds good, that's what gives it inherent worth.

The best track is "Hide And Seek," which is wrenching and heartbreaking to listen to, the low point is the unmemorable "Just For Now."

For other female artists, be sure to check out my reviews of:
One Cell In The Sea - A Fine Frenzy
21 - Adele
The Jasmine Flower - Heather Nova

6.5/10

For other reviews of albums and singles, be sure to click here to check out my organized index page!

© 2011, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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