i & r
Imogen
Heap
lollipop.com
Issue 45 - Fall 98
by Jamie
Kiffel
Over a scored surface of
tribal calls, grinding bass beats and insidiously groaning,
industrially-machinated voices, the lascivious expression of atavistic
sexuality is wholly defined by English singer Imogen Heap, whose product
is arguably the heaviest and most startling audiotronic head rush next to
a bullet to the brain. If Heap's symphonic mixtures of religiously gentle
piano spattered with demonic growls, cello-dark vocal tones, feline howls,
rockstar shouts and in-your-ear subwoofer breaths don't blow you out of
your chair, you must be living in denial.
Heap understands how to tune the emotions via sound. In "Getting
Scared," the first track on iMegaphone, a cat and mouse
pursuit experiences a role reversal as ghostly echoes and deep, slow
whispers evoke images of a spitting viper slithering its way through the
speakers. The listener is thus introduced to his or her role as prey to
this disc. We become subject to sudden dynamic changes, industrial
outpourings in the midst of sweet lullabies, insistent, forward-marching
trance chants, and adrenalized hooks made supercharged through orchestral
instruments which brush strings and tiretracks with a wide catalog of
machinery.
Heap possesses the versatile and eerie, sanctified (and often desecrated)
piano of Tori Amos; the deep, rich tones of old jazz; the rat- and
roach-filled darkness of Alice in Chains and, most importantly, a perfect
dram measure of harnessed and holy terror. This may be most evident on
"Rake It In," a Gothic nightmare which begins with a lightly
scraping undertone and builds to full grave dig before exploding into a
carcrash cacophony complete with terrified screams. The anima is invoked
and released here with all the beauty of an angel and the anger of a
banshee.
iMegaphone plays like a horror novel, insisting on paralytic attention
until its moment of final resolution. This is as fanged and bloody as
beauty gets. Dare to troll the jeweled abyss, and revel in the stunning
pursuit of its guardian fiend.
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