by Nathan Loughran

Emerging from the darkness of the Leadmill is a tall figure with piercing eyes and shocking red hair. She walks towards me, her hand held out, she is grinning maniacally.

With the physical appearance of a demonic spirit, it is fair to say Imogen Heap has a powerful physical presence. The images conjured up by her music are the same as those conjured up by her appearance, anger, energy, violence and urgency. It is startling then, after a couple of minutes of talking, to discover a soft spoken young woman whose shy demeanour portrays a more dream like character than the one I'd imagined.

She talks about music in an almost reverent way. Her spiritual approach to music is refreshing if at times a little naive. Yet this attitude begins to make sense when you realise how significant a role music has played in her life. As a young child, Imogen discovered with a sense of awe the effect music can have by playing around on a piano. She soon began writing songs and lost herself completely in music

"Music built up my confidence" She states, the somber tone of her voice hinting at the true importance of this confidence building exercise.

After a stint at boarding school, where she played in Jazz bands as well as singing and writing her own songs, she was spotted by her manager who was so impressed he wanted to sign her up on the spot. Although things are moving and changing very quickly for Imogen Heap, she sees this as a good thing..

"I want to keep moving forward" she tells me "Constantly changing, In the way Bowie always has new ideas I intend to continually surprise and stretch myself."

Imogen explains how things are already in the process of development.

"The album was recorded before I had the band and although I love the way the album turned out those songs have already changed considerably since the band have added their parts in the live set up. As well as adding a new dimension to the album tracks we're in a situation now where we play a different set of songs every night and each time they sound different, as the band experiment with their sounds."

How important do you feel the live aspect of your music is.

"To truly understand the music, you need to see it. You need to see it live to connect with it. The visual aspect of music is crucial. To create the right atmosphere visuals are necessary."

As we discuss the visual aspect of performance art it is soon clear that Imogen's mind is already beginning to focus on ambitious future projects.

"I want to work with colour frequency and light frequency together to create moods. I hate bands that just stand there.... After the next album I want to get into film scores, arrangement and orchestration. I don't want to be held back by any restrictions or structures. I want to surprise people and shock people. To be honest I love an excuse to show off!"

Later on I am witness to one of the most wildly eccentric performances I have seen of late!  With a University tour pencilled in for early in 1998 as well as plans to tour America, Imogen Heap is keeping herself busy. With ambitions to work with one of her favourite bands, Acacia and a promise that the second album will be nothing like the first, Imogen is obviously planning far ahead.

Her second single, "Shine" is released in February 1998 and her debut album iMEGAPHONE follows soon after in April.