by Haven James

Preview: Imogen Heap at Joyous Lake, Sunday, 9.27.98

If you see her wandering around town before her gig this Sunday, September 27 [1998] at the Joyous Lake, Imogen Heap (her first name pronounced Ima-gin) will be hard to mistake. Pushing 20, she stalks roughly six-feet and sports a long, red/auburn mane. A musician since her earliest recollections, Heap's debut CD on Almo Sounds [AMSD-80017], iMEGAPHONE, is said to encapsulate her life to date with summary impressions and responses to encounters along her path.

Conjuring images of very dark corners, confrontations, exaltations, and pleading passions, Imogen's statement as a singer/songwriter is anything but casual. "Would you take my candlelight" repeats in rounds over the serenade of the grand piano. Segueing into "Rake It In," heavy breath and bass raise the intensity of the muse, as sordid sounds creep in to color the scene, rising to threatening screams and the toying lyric, "Do you know what my chopping block is for?"

The resolution is in the magic, however--the ethereal, the vision. It is haunting, but not evil. Still, notions of a London techno-club with cat-masked patrons in black leather, strobes, and thick air come to mind almost as a soundtrack to a SIM from La Femme Nikita. "I am a mirror with no reflection," she sings, "I am a razor without my blade."

Heap's vocal range is rich with tones through tenor and alto sequences. Her background and training are in classical forms which mix into her progressive imaginings with ease and grace. She has gone in pretty deep with a lot of the stuff that drives her on this CD, and no doubt commands as much from her audience in performance. Aggressively animated and seductive, she intends to hypnotize, and doubtless does.

This will be the first appearance of Imogen Heap in Woodstock. She arrives here from a long week on the road that began in California last weekend, with stop-offs in Arkansas, Georgia, and Alabama, and she goes on to Pennsylvania from here. Perhaps the biggest notch in her resume was a performance for 150,000 at the Prince's Trust Concert in Hyde Park (London, England) between the sets by Eric Clapton and The Who. Now it's out to beat the drums across America and beyond for iMEGAPHONE.