- 12 Songs
Imogen Heap
Imogen Heap (born 9 December 1977 in the London Borough of Havering) is a Grammy nominated English singer and songwriter from Romford, Essex, known for her work as part of Frou Frou and for her 2005 solo record Speak for
... Imogen Heap (born 9 December 1977 in the London Borough of Havering) is a Grammy nominated English singer and songwriter from Romford, Essex, known for her work as part of Frou Frou and for her 2005 solo record Speak for Yourself, which she wrote, produced and mixed. In 2006, she was nominated for two Grammy Awards.
Biography:
Early life:
Heap played music from an early age, and is classically trained in many instruments, including piano (her first instrument), cello and clarinet. She later taught herself to play the guitar, drums, and the array mbira.
Heap began to write songs by age thirteen. Her mother (an art therapist) and her father (a construction rock retailer) separated when Heap was twelve. Heap did not get on well with the music teacher at her boarding school, so she principally taught herself sequencing, music engineering, sampling and production on Atari computers.
Heap went on to study at the BRIT School of Performing Arts & Technology in Croydon, Surrey. She also teamed up with manager, Mark Wood. After being introduced to Nik Kershaw by his manager Mickey Modern, Imogen recorded four demos with Nik which Mark and Mickey took to Rondor Music. Consequently, a few months later she signed her first record contract at 18 to independent record label Almo Sounds. Mark Wood and Mickey Modern formed Modernwood Management and they managed Imogen over the next ten years. (In 2006, Modernwood Management was dissolved, although Mark Wood continued to manage Heap via his new company, Radius Music.)
During 1996, Heap began working with an experimental pop band called Acacia, which was fronted by the epicene Nigerian emigre Alexander Nilere and which also contained keyboard/sampler player Guy Sigsworth (who'd also played with Bjork and Seal). While never a full member of the band, Heap played an important role as guest vocalist (as a counterpart to Nilere) and would end up contributing to various Acacia single and album tracks (One Acacia song - "Maddening Shroud" - would later resurface in the repertoire of Heap's Frou Frou project).
Dennis Arnold - a friend of Mickey Modern - was an early Imogen Heap fan and recommended she should play at the 1996 Prince's Trust Concert in Hyde Park, London organized by Harvey Goldsmith. Having enjoyed a prestigious live debut, performing four songs backed by a band consisting of several of her closest friends (including Acacia members) between sets by The Who and Eric Clapton, Heap's debut album enjoyed some critical high points all over the UK.
1998–2000: i Megaphone:
Heap's debut album, i Megaphone (an anagram of "Imogen Heap") was released in 1998 internationally via Almo Sounds, and garnered critical acclaim. The album was a mixture of self-penned and self-produced tracks, alongside tracks co-written with, and produced by established producers such as David Kahne, Dave Stewart and Guy Sigsworth. Heap's angst-filled songs were compared favourably to work by artists such as PJ Harvey, Kate Bush and Annie Lennox.
Promotion for the record included a tour of America, where the album was becoming popular through word-of-mouth, and performances all around Europe. Three singles were commercially released in limited quantities in the UK; "Getting Scared", "Shine" and "Come Here Boy". "Oh Me, Oh My" was also sent to US radio stations in place of "Shine".
Heap's early success was soon replaced by problems. Almo Sounds cut funding for the UK promotional and gave Heap a deadline to deliver songs for her second album. Upon delivery of the songs, she was told that they lacked "hit potential". Her career was left in limbo for over a year, a situation which was worsened when it was announced that the record label had been sold to Universal and would be shut down and disbanded, with its repertoire of artists moving or leaving the label. Heap was one of the artists who was dropped from the label, leaving her without a record contract.
i Megaphone had, however, been licensed from Almo Sounds to Aozora Records in Japan, who eventually re-released and re-promoted the album in January 2002, featuring "Blanket", and a Frou Frou remix of one of her B-sides, "Aeroplane" (for which a video was released exclusively to Japanese media). The album featured new packaging, all-new artwork, and a previously unavailable hidden track, entitled "Kidding", recorded live during her 1999 tour.
Copies of the original Almo Sounds release remain rare. A Brazilian label, Trama Records, currently claims to hold the license to the record and have started re-printing copies of the album in limited quantities. The album was released digitally on the U.S. iTunes Music Store in early 2006. After receiving commercial success with her work with Guy Sigsworth as the duo Frou Frou and her second solo album, Speak for Yourself, Heap was able to secure the re-release of i Megaphone. It was re-released on November 14, 2006 to coincide with her Fall 2006 North American tour.
2001 - interim work:
During her time in limbo with the Almo Sound situation, Heap appeared on two further UK singles. These were "Meantime" (a track written by her former Acacia colleagues Guy Sigsworth and Alexander Nilere for the soundtrack to the independent British film, G:MT – Greenwich Mean Time) and "Blanket" (a collaboration with Urban Species, which was commercially released on 2 CDs, as well as being available on the Urban Species album of the same name).
In the gap between the end of promotion for i Megaphone internationally, and the re-promotion, Heap had also begun to think about her second solo album, and had started writing songs, both solo, as well as working with Guy Sigsworth; however, as she was left without a record deal, the songs were shelved.
In 2000, Heap also sang on the album You Had It Coming by Jeff Beck.
2002–2003: Frou Frou:
Heap had kept in contact with Guy Sigsworth, who had co-written and produced "Getting Scared" from i Megaphone, and this led to the pair of them establishing the collaborative project Frou Frou.
The initial idea was that Sigsworth would put together an album, featuring tracks written and produced by him alongside a singer, songwriter, poet or rapper, to be released under the name Frou Frou. Heap explains that Sigsworth invited her over to his studio, to write lyrics to a four-bar motif he had, with one condition – that she include the word "love" somewhere. The first line she came up with was "lung of love, leaves me breathless", and the Details album track, "Flicks" was born. A week later, Sigsworth phoned her up again, and together they wrote and recorded "Breathe In" and it happened again and again, until nearly half the album was completed. In December 2001, they made the decision to form a duo.
Their first official release as Frou Frou was a remix of "Airplane" (renamed "Aeroplane") – a track they had written together at the time of "Getting Scared", which was used as a B-side on the "Shine" single and on the Japanese re-release of i Megaphone.
In August 2002, they released the Details album and singles "Breathe In", "It's Good To Be In Love", and "Must Be Dreaming" (although the latter two were not commercially available). The album – a full collaboration between the duo, with Heap giving vocals to tracks they had written and produced together – was critically acclaimed, but did not enjoy the commercial success that they had been hoping for.
In late 2003, after an extensive promotional tour of the UK, Europe and the U.S., the duo were told that their record label, Island Records would not be picking up the option for a second album. They were, however, open to signing Heap as a solo artist; she declined, unwilling to entrust them with her career after their mistreatment of Details. She says, "If you had taken a shirt into a dry cleaners and they burned it, would you then go, 'Thanks very much. I'll bring in my other dry cleaning tomorrow'? You wouldn't. So I didn't take the deal."
Heap and Sigsworth remain firm friends, and have worked together since the project, including their temporary re-formation in late 2003, when they covered the Bonnie Tyler classic, "Holding Out for a Hero", which was featured during the credits of the movie Shrek 2 after Jennifer Saunders' version in the film. Frou Frou saw a resurgence in popularity in 2004, when their album track "Let Go" was featured in the film Garden State. Heap's "Just For Now" appeared as a song in the film The Holiday (as well as "Let Go") that appeared in cinemas in 2006.
2004–2005: The O.C. and Speak for Yourself:
In December 2003, Heap announced on her web site that she was going to write and produce her second solo album, using her site as a blog to update fans on progress, and even seeking them to be her A&R team for the lyrics to "Daylight Robbery" (which started out as a sample recorded for a television advert).
Heap set herself a deadline of one year to make the album, booking a session to master the album one year ahead in December 2004. She re-mortgaged her flat to fund production costs, including renting a studio (previously inhabited by UK grime artist, Dizzee Rascal), and purchasing instruments (as a birthday present to herself). The agent who came to finalize the amount she was to receive turned out to be a Frou Frou fan. During the year, demo versions of tracks were played on U.S. radio station, KCRW, who had supported the Frou Frou record.
At the end of 2004, with the album completed, Heap premiered two album tracks online, enabling fans to purchase them prior to the album's release – "Just for Now" (which was up for a limited time as a Christmas gift), and "Goodnight and Go", which had been featured on the second season of hit US TV drama The O.C. early in the month. Heap announced at a December 2006 concert in Lawrence, KS that the track "Just for Now" was also originally written for The O.C. as a combination Christmas and Hanukkah song titled "Chrismukkah" but was deemed by the producers to be "too dark."
In April 2005, The O.C. featured another track, the sparse vocodered-vocal track, "Hide and Seek" in the closing scenes of the season two finale. The track was released immediately to digital download services, such as iTunes, in the U.S., where it became a fixture in the chart. The track was released to iTunes UK on 5 July 2005 — the same day as the UK airing of the season finale — and peaked at #1 on the iTunes download chart, as well as entering the official UK download chart.
The third season of The O.C. featured Heap's song "Speeding Cars" and closed with her haunting rendition of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah". The show's season one finale ended with a recording of the same song by artist Jeff Buckley.
Due to bad experiences with record labels in the past, Heap made a decision to put out the album on her own in the UK, starting her own record company, titled Megaphonic Records. The album, titled Speak for Yourself – as Heap had produced, written and done 'everything in between' on the record, including designing the artwork – was described by Heap as "more Madonna than Guns N' Roses, more Donnie Darko than Dirty Dancing...left of center, electronically sprinkled magic dust over orchestral strings, harps and things, with great lyrics". Following Heap's guest appearance on his You Had It Coming album, Jeff Beck returned the favour by playing on the album track "Goodnight And Go".
The album was released in the UK on 18 July 2005 on CD and iTunes UK, where it entered the top 10 chart. The initial 10,000 physical copies pressed also sold out quickly, distributed through large and independent record stores, and Heap's own online shop.
"Hide and Seek", thanks to exposure from The O.C., received radio attention from the popular UK radio station BBC Radio One, with DJ Scott Mills featuring it as his record of the week, and provoking strong reactions ("love it or hate it") from other DJs at the station. The track was commercially released on a special limited edition (1500 copies) 7" vinyl in the UK in September, featuring an exclusive instrumental, "Cumulus", to accompany the vocal-only A-side. The track has been featured on downtempo compilation CDs, including The Chillout Session 2006. Other singles from the album include "Goodnight and Go" and "Headlock".
In August 2005, Heap announced that she had licensed Speak for Yourself to Sony BMG imprint RCA Victor for the album release in the United States, Canada and Mexico. The album was released in November 2005, and debuted at #144 in the Billboard Top 200 album chart, with Heap appearing on the Hotel Cafe Tour as well as a mini-tour of her own to promote the record. In concert, Heap performed as a one-woman band, controlling the sound through her Apple PowerBook laptop, as well as singing and playing the piano and array mbira. She also performed the album's second single, "Goodnight and Go" on The Late Show with David Letterman on January 11, 2006 (having been scheduled for the day before, and cancelled moments before going onstage, due to time constraints) as well as The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. She played "Hide and Seek" and "Goodnight and Go" on Last Call With Carson Daly.
When she returned from the U.S., having sold over 120,000 copies, she announced tour dates for the UK, which saw her playing to a crowd of 2000 at the Shepherds Bush Empire in March 2006 and going on to perform for 3300 people at the reopened The Roundhouse venue in October 2006 which marked the first public concert to ever take place at the newly refurbished London venue.
2006–2007: The year of the 'White Rabbit':
Heap also announced, on her return to the UK, that she had signed a deal for the album to be released internationally, as well as re-promoted in the UK, with a new imprint of Sony BMG, White Rabbit, run by former Sony BMG UK A&R vice president Nick Raphael. The deal meant that the album could have the promotional backing provided by a respected major label, whilst Heap retained sole control and the team she established for Megaphonic Records.
Speak for Yourself was re-released on the label on April 24, 2006, ahead of a full promotional push on May 15, a week after the second single, "Goodnight and Go", was commercially released in the UK on CD (featuring artwork by Ryan Obermeyer and a special lenticular cover), and special limited edition 7" vinyl. The track was remixed by Heap for radio to include elements from her live performances of the track and labelled as 'Immi's Radio Mix', which is accompanied on the release by a brand new track "Speeding Cars", which she performed at tour dates in the UK in February and March. The video, which is featured on the CD release, hit MTV and VH1 UK in early April, before being added to other television channels later in the month, and the single charted at #56 in the official UK top 75 singles chart. A special edit of the video for the US market was released in late April, and both "Speeding Cars" and Immi's Radio Mix of "Goodnight and Go" were made available via iTunes a few days later, to coincide with her appearance at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.
In August 2006, Heap performed a set at the V Festival, and it was announced that "Headlock" would be the third single to be lifted from the album, to be released on October 16, 2006 in the UK, on CD (in a special digipak with partially frosted plastic outer sleeve) and special limited edition 7" vinyl, once again remixed for radio as 'Immi's Radio mix' and accompanied by a new all-vocal B-side, entitled "Mic Check". The "Headlock" video premiered on Manchester-centric TV station, Channel M, in early September, before being sent to other music television channels for rotation, and promo CDs of the single were sent out featuring a drum and bass remix of the track by High Contrast.
In late September and early October, Heap embarked on a tour of the UK, holding a competition on MySpace for different support acts for each venue, before touring throughout Canada and the USA in November and December. This was her first tour of North America that included a band, incorporating upright bass, percussion, and support acts Kid Beyond and Levi Weaver on beatbox and guitar, respectively. In December 2006, Heap was featured on the front page of The Green Room magazine.
On 7 December 2006, Heap received two Grammy nominations for the 49th Annual Grammy Awards, one for Best New Artist and the other for Best Song Written For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media for "Can't Take It In". In early 2007, a Verizon commercial featured the instrumental of her song "Headlock". Apple used her track "Goodnight and Go" for feature previews for pre-release videos of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Heap announced in May 2007 that she will not be making appearances for most of the year in order to complete the scoring for the Disney documentary and to work on her third solo album that is expected out in 2009.
2008–present: Ellipse:
Although she had intentions of working on the Disney documentary, later on in the summer of 2007, Heap announced on her MySpace blog that she had dropped out of the project in order to focus more on her upcoming album. Heap had said in a video blog that she expected her third album to be strategically released in May 2008, indicating that releasing it later over the competitive holiday release window would threaten the album's success.
Currently, one of Heap's video blogs revealed that, at the rate of recording a song every two weeks (with twelve songs in total), the latest record would be finished in December 2008, a day before her birthday. Heap has also named at least sixteen of her new songs in multiple YouTube VBlogs and in her online Blog, including "Not Now But Soon", "Black Sheets", "Seat Covers", "Bad Body Double", "Little Bird", "Tidal", "Wedding Song", "Somewhere on the Central Line", "Canvas", "Polyfilla", "A-ha!", "Wait it Out", "Swoon", "First Train Home", "Earth", "Half Life", and "But...". "Not Now, But Soon" was the first of these songs to officially be recorded and then heard when Heap added it to her MySpace. The song was also used on the official soundtrack for the NBC show, Heroes. As of now, there is not a confirmed official release date for Heap's third release. As of YouTube VBlog #24, Heap had strategically planned to publish all twelve tracks of her new album by the end of September 2008, but she failed to meet the date. On VBlog #28, she planned to finish the album by December 8, the day before her birthday, and begin mastering it the day after. Now, as of VBlog #33, Heap has stated that she failed to make the recording date again with everything else that she had lined up.
She stated that this time around, she had many more commitments besides recording, and other projects that she wanted to do. One of these was being asked to perform at the annual event, PopTech on October 23. At this event, she included one of her new songs, "Wait it Out" in the set, as well as performing one of her original songs, "Speeding Cars." Even though she has struggled meeting the recording goals she has set up, Heap stated that she is about a month away from finishing the album.
But, in an iBlogs, she stated the album was most likely being pushed back to an April-May release, due to the fact she wanted much promotion done, more so than with Speak For Yourself, also, a DVD was being produced to being sold with the album.
On March 12, Directcurrentmusic.com reported that the new album has an internal RCA release schedule date of July 14 with the song, "Canvas" being readied as the album's first official single and video. It was however reported by Imogen's webmaster, James, that while Canvas may be the first song everyone heard off the record, it is not the first single. He stated this in a topic on her official forum
Access Hollywood announced Imogen Heap's third solo album would be entitled, "Ellipse" and that the album would be released in August. This was confirmed by Heap on Twitter. On April 27, DirectCurrentMusic.com confirmed that the official internal release date is August 18. On May 9 Heap stated on her Twitter page that the albums release date had been pushed forward to August 4, and that her deadline for finishing the album will be May 25. On May 17 Heap Stated on her Twitter Page that she has one song left to complete, called "Between Sheets"
As of the beginning of June, the album has been finished, mixed and mastered. Press promos were sent out for printing June second. Also, the Canvas video (note that Canvas will not be the first single, although it will be the first song the fans get to hear in full) is to be released within the first two weeks of June.
It has also recently been revealed in an article that the Making Of Ellipse DVD will not be released with the CD, but will be released separately afterwards. Heap announced on her twitter page that Ellipse's first single will be "First Train Home".
As stated in the last two vBlogs of the "Making of..."-series published June 15, and also on her Twitter page, the definite release date will be the 24th of August for the UK and the 25th for the US and Canada.
As published on her official website, the 'Ellipse' tracklisting will now take the form of 13 songs in the final order of: 01. First Train Home, 02. Wait It Out, 03. Earth, 04. Little Bird, 05. Swoon, 06. Tidal, 07. Between Sheets, 08. 2 - 1 (formerly 'Pollyfilla'), 09. Bad Body Double, 10. Aha!, 11. The Fire, 12. Canvas and 13. Half Life.
In a final decision by Imogen Heap as stated by herself in vBlog #38, the previous title of 'Polyfilla' has been changed. As seen in the tracklisting above, this has been changed to "2-1", though reasons for this change are unknown.
Track 11, as explained by Imogen in vBlog #39 is a personal song fusing her personal home/family life and her musical/fan life together. It will be an instrumental track using minimally edited improvs from her trip to Maui. The name "The Fire" originates from the burning of a "special piece of wood" which bears considerable significance in the Heap family.
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Biography:
Early life:
Heap played music from an early age, and is classically trained in many instruments, including piano (her first instrument), cello and clarinet. She later taught herself to play the guitar, drums, and the array mbira.
Heap began to write songs by age thirteen. Her mother (an art therapist) and her father (a construction rock retailer) separated when Heap was twelve. Heap did not get on well with the music teacher at her boarding school, so she principally taught herself sequencing, music engineering, sampling and production on Atari computers.
Heap went on to study at the BRIT School of Performing Arts & Technology in Croydon, Surrey. She also teamed up with manager, Mark Wood. After being introduced to Nik Kershaw by his manager Mickey Modern, Imogen recorded four demos with Nik which Mark and Mickey took to Rondor Music. Consequently, a few months later she signed her first record contract at 18 to independent record label Almo Sounds. Mark Wood and Mickey Modern formed Modernwood Management and they managed Imogen over the next ten years. (In 2006, Modernwood Management was dissolved, although Mark Wood continued to manage Heap via his new company, Radius Music.)
During 1996, Heap began working with an experimental pop band called Acacia, which was fronted by the epicene Nigerian emigre Alexander Nilere and which also contained keyboard/sampler player Guy Sigsworth (who'd also played with Bjork and Seal). While never a full member of the band, Heap played an important role as guest vocalist (as a counterpart to Nilere) and would end up contributing to various Acacia single and album tracks (One Acacia song - "Maddening Shroud" - would later resurface in the repertoire of Heap's Frou Frou project).
Dennis Arnold - a friend of Mickey Modern - was an early Imogen Heap fan and recommended she should play at the 1996 Prince's Trust Concert in Hyde Park, London organized by Harvey Goldsmith. Having enjoyed a prestigious live debut, performing four songs backed by a band consisting of several of her closest friends (including Acacia members) between sets by The Who and Eric Clapton, Heap's debut album enjoyed some critical high points all over the UK.
1998–2000: i Megaphone:
Heap's debut album, i Megaphone (an anagram of "Imogen Heap") was released in 1998 internationally via Almo Sounds, and garnered critical acclaim. The album was a mixture of self-penned and self-produced tracks, alongside tracks co-written with, and produced by established producers such as David Kahne, Dave Stewart and Guy Sigsworth. Heap's angst-filled songs were compared favourably to work by artists such as PJ Harvey, Kate Bush and Annie Lennox.
Promotion for the record included a tour of America, where the album was becoming popular through word-of-mouth, and performances all around Europe. Three singles were commercially released in limited quantities in the UK; "Getting Scared", "Shine" and "Come Here Boy". "Oh Me, Oh My" was also sent to US radio stations in place of "Shine".
Heap's early success was soon replaced by problems. Almo Sounds cut funding for the UK promotional and gave Heap a deadline to deliver songs for her second album. Upon delivery of the songs, she was told that they lacked "hit potential". Her career was left in limbo for over a year, a situation which was worsened when it was announced that the record label had been sold to Universal and would be shut down and disbanded, with its repertoire of artists moving or leaving the label. Heap was one of the artists who was dropped from the label, leaving her without a record contract.
i Megaphone had, however, been licensed from Almo Sounds to Aozora Records in Japan, who eventually re-released and re-promoted the album in January 2002, featuring "Blanket", and a Frou Frou remix of one of her B-sides, "Aeroplane" (for which a video was released exclusively to Japanese media). The album featured new packaging, all-new artwork, and a previously unavailable hidden track, entitled "Kidding", recorded live during her 1999 tour.
Copies of the original Almo Sounds release remain rare. A Brazilian label, Trama Records, currently claims to hold the license to the record and have started re-printing copies of the album in limited quantities. The album was released digitally on the U.S. iTunes Music Store in early 2006. After receiving commercial success with her work with Guy Sigsworth as the duo Frou Frou and her second solo album, Speak for Yourself, Heap was able to secure the re-release of i Megaphone. It was re-released on November 14, 2006 to coincide with her Fall 2006 North American tour.
2001 - interim work:
During her time in limbo with the Almo Sound situation, Heap appeared on two further UK singles. These were "Meantime" (a track written by her former Acacia colleagues Guy Sigsworth and Alexander Nilere for the soundtrack to the independent British film, G:MT – Greenwich Mean Time) and "Blanket" (a collaboration with Urban Species, which was commercially released on 2 CDs, as well as being available on the Urban Species album of the same name).
In the gap between the end of promotion for i Megaphone internationally, and the re-promotion, Heap had also begun to think about her second solo album, and had started writing songs, both solo, as well as working with Guy Sigsworth; however, as she was left without a record deal, the songs were shelved.
In 2000, Heap also sang on the album You Had It Coming by Jeff Beck.
2002–2003: Frou Frou:
Heap had kept in contact with Guy Sigsworth, who had co-written and produced "Getting Scared" from i Megaphone, and this led to the pair of them establishing the collaborative project Frou Frou.
The initial idea was that Sigsworth would put together an album, featuring tracks written and produced by him alongside a singer, songwriter, poet or rapper, to be released under the name Frou Frou. Heap explains that Sigsworth invited her over to his studio, to write lyrics to a four-bar motif he had, with one condition – that she include the word "love" somewhere. The first line she came up with was "lung of love, leaves me breathless", and the Details album track, "Flicks" was born. A week later, Sigsworth phoned her up again, and together they wrote and recorded "Breathe In" and it happened again and again, until nearly half the album was completed. In December 2001, they made the decision to form a duo.
Their first official release as Frou Frou was a remix of "Airplane" (renamed "Aeroplane") – a track they had written together at the time of "Getting Scared", which was used as a B-side on the "Shine" single and on the Japanese re-release of i Megaphone.
In August 2002, they released the Details album and singles "Breathe In", "It's Good To Be In Love", and "Must Be Dreaming" (although the latter two were not commercially available). The album – a full collaboration between the duo, with Heap giving vocals to tracks they had written and produced together – was critically acclaimed, but did not enjoy the commercial success that they had been hoping for.
In late 2003, after an extensive promotional tour of the UK, Europe and the U.S., the duo were told that their record label, Island Records would not be picking up the option for a second album. They were, however, open to signing Heap as a solo artist; she declined, unwilling to entrust them with her career after their mistreatment of Details. She says, "If you had taken a shirt into a dry cleaners and they burned it, would you then go, 'Thanks very much. I'll bring in my other dry cleaning tomorrow'? You wouldn't. So I didn't take the deal."
Heap and Sigsworth remain firm friends, and have worked together since the project, including their temporary re-formation in late 2003, when they covered the Bonnie Tyler classic, "Holding Out for a Hero", which was featured during the credits of the movie Shrek 2 after Jennifer Saunders' version in the film. Frou Frou saw a resurgence in popularity in 2004, when their album track "Let Go" was featured in the film Garden State. Heap's "Just For Now" appeared as a song in the film The Holiday (as well as "Let Go") that appeared in cinemas in 2006.
2004–2005: The O.C. and Speak for Yourself:
In December 2003, Heap announced on her web site that she was going to write and produce her second solo album, using her site as a blog to update fans on progress, and even seeking them to be her A&R team for the lyrics to "Daylight Robbery" (which started out as a sample recorded for a television advert).
Heap set herself a deadline of one year to make the album, booking a session to master the album one year ahead in December 2004. She re-mortgaged her flat to fund production costs, including renting a studio (previously inhabited by UK grime artist, Dizzee Rascal), and purchasing instruments (as a birthday present to herself). The agent who came to finalize the amount she was to receive turned out to be a Frou Frou fan. During the year, demo versions of tracks were played on U.S. radio station, KCRW, who had supported the Frou Frou record.
At the end of 2004, with the album completed, Heap premiered two album tracks online, enabling fans to purchase them prior to the album's release – "Just for Now" (which was up for a limited time as a Christmas gift), and "Goodnight and Go", which had been featured on the second season of hit US TV drama The O.C. early in the month. Heap announced at a December 2006 concert in Lawrence, KS that the track "Just for Now" was also originally written for The O.C. as a combination Christmas and Hanukkah song titled "Chrismukkah" but was deemed by the producers to be "too dark."
In April 2005, The O.C. featured another track, the sparse vocodered-vocal track, "Hide and Seek" in the closing scenes of the season two finale. The track was released immediately to digital download services, such as iTunes, in the U.S., where it became a fixture in the chart. The track was released to iTunes UK on 5 July 2005 — the same day as the UK airing of the season finale — and peaked at #1 on the iTunes download chart, as well as entering the official UK download chart.
The third season of The O.C. featured Heap's song "Speeding Cars" and closed with her haunting rendition of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah". The show's season one finale ended with a recording of the same song by artist Jeff Buckley.
Due to bad experiences with record labels in the past, Heap made a decision to put out the album on her own in the UK, starting her own record company, titled Megaphonic Records. The album, titled Speak for Yourself – as Heap had produced, written and done 'everything in between' on the record, including designing the artwork – was described by Heap as "more Madonna than Guns N' Roses, more Donnie Darko than Dirty Dancing...left of center, electronically sprinkled magic dust over orchestral strings, harps and things, with great lyrics". Following Heap's guest appearance on his You Had It Coming album, Jeff Beck returned the favour by playing on the album track "Goodnight And Go".
The album was released in the UK on 18 July 2005 on CD and iTunes UK, where it entered the top 10 chart. The initial 10,000 physical copies pressed also sold out quickly, distributed through large and independent record stores, and Heap's own online shop.
"Hide and Seek", thanks to exposure from The O.C., received radio attention from the popular UK radio station BBC Radio One, with DJ Scott Mills featuring it as his record of the week, and provoking strong reactions ("love it or hate it") from other DJs at the station. The track was commercially released on a special limited edition (1500 copies) 7" vinyl in the UK in September, featuring an exclusive instrumental, "Cumulus", to accompany the vocal-only A-side. The track has been featured on downtempo compilation CDs, including The Chillout Session 2006. Other singles from the album include "Goodnight and Go" and "Headlock".
In August 2005, Heap announced that she had licensed Speak for Yourself to Sony BMG imprint RCA Victor for the album release in the United States, Canada and Mexico. The album was released in November 2005, and debuted at #144 in the Billboard Top 200 album chart, with Heap appearing on the Hotel Cafe Tour as well as a mini-tour of her own to promote the record. In concert, Heap performed as a one-woman band, controlling the sound through her Apple PowerBook laptop, as well as singing and playing the piano and array mbira. She also performed the album's second single, "Goodnight and Go" on The Late Show with David Letterman on January 11, 2006 (having been scheduled for the day before, and cancelled moments before going onstage, due to time constraints) as well as The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. She played "Hide and Seek" and "Goodnight and Go" on Last Call With Carson Daly.
When she returned from the U.S., having sold over 120,000 copies, she announced tour dates for the UK, which saw her playing to a crowd of 2000 at the Shepherds Bush Empire in March 2006 and going on to perform for 3300 people at the reopened The Roundhouse venue in October 2006 which marked the first public concert to ever take place at the newly refurbished London venue.
2006–2007: The year of the 'White Rabbit':
Heap also announced, on her return to the UK, that she had signed a deal for the album to be released internationally, as well as re-promoted in the UK, with a new imprint of Sony BMG, White Rabbit, run by former Sony BMG UK A&R vice president Nick Raphael. The deal meant that the album could have the promotional backing provided by a respected major label, whilst Heap retained sole control and the team she established for Megaphonic Records.
Speak for Yourself was re-released on the label on April 24, 2006, ahead of a full promotional push on May 15, a week after the second single, "Goodnight and Go", was commercially released in the UK on CD (featuring artwork by Ryan Obermeyer and a special lenticular cover), and special limited edition 7" vinyl. The track was remixed by Heap for radio to include elements from her live performances of the track and labelled as 'Immi's Radio Mix', which is accompanied on the release by a brand new track "Speeding Cars", which she performed at tour dates in the UK in February and March. The video, which is featured on the CD release, hit MTV and VH1 UK in early April, before being added to other television channels later in the month, and the single charted at #56 in the official UK top 75 singles chart. A special edit of the video for the US market was released in late April, and both "Speeding Cars" and Immi's Radio Mix of "Goodnight and Go" were made available via iTunes a few days later, to coincide with her appearance at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.
In August 2006, Heap performed a set at the V Festival, and it was announced that "Headlock" would be the third single to be lifted from the album, to be released on October 16, 2006 in the UK, on CD (in a special digipak with partially frosted plastic outer sleeve) and special limited edition 7" vinyl, once again remixed for radio as 'Immi's Radio mix' and accompanied by a new all-vocal B-side, entitled "Mic Check". The "Headlock" video premiered on Manchester-centric TV station, Channel M, in early September, before being sent to other music television channels for rotation, and promo CDs of the single were sent out featuring a drum and bass remix of the track by High Contrast.
In late September and early October, Heap embarked on a tour of the UK, holding a competition on MySpace for different support acts for each venue, before touring throughout Canada and the USA in November and December. This was her first tour of North America that included a band, incorporating upright bass, percussion, and support acts Kid Beyond and Levi Weaver on beatbox and guitar, respectively. In December 2006, Heap was featured on the front page of The Green Room magazine.
On 7 December 2006, Heap received two Grammy nominations for the 49th Annual Grammy Awards, one for Best New Artist and the other for Best Song Written For Motion Picture, Television Or Other Visual Media for "Can't Take It In". In early 2007, a Verizon commercial featured the instrumental of her song "Headlock". Apple used her track "Goodnight and Go" for feature previews for pre-release videos of Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. Heap announced in May 2007 that she will not be making appearances for most of the year in order to complete the scoring for the Disney documentary and to work on her third solo album that is expected out in 2009.
2008–present: Ellipse:
Although she had intentions of working on the Disney documentary, later on in the summer of 2007, Heap announced on her MySpace blog that she had dropped out of the project in order to focus more on her upcoming album. Heap had said in a video blog that she expected her third album to be strategically released in May 2008, indicating that releasing it later over the competitive holiday release window would threaten the album's success.
Currently, one of Heap's video blogs revealed that, at the rate of recording a song every two weeks (with twelve songs in total), the latest record would be finished in December 2008, a day before her birthday. Heap has also named at least sixteen of her new songs in multiple YouTube VBlogs and in her online Blog, including "Not Now But Soon", "Black Sheets", "Seat Covers", "Bad Body Double", "Little Bird", "Tidal", "Wedding Song", "Somewhere on the Central Line", "Canvas", "Polyfilla", "A-ha!", "Wait it Out", "Swoon", "First Train Home", "Earth", "Half Life", and "But...". "Not Now, But Soon" was the first of these songs to officially be recorded and then heard when Heap added it to her MySpace. The song was also used on the official soundtrack for the NBC show, Heroes. As of now, there is not a confirmed official release date for Heap's third release. As of YouTube VBlog #24, Heap had strategically planned to publish all twelve tracks of her new album by the end of September 2008, but she failed to meet the date. On VBlog #28, she planned to finish the album by December 8, the day before her birthday, and begin mastering it the day after. Now, as of VBlog #33, Heap has stated that she failed to make the recording date again with everything else that she had lined up.
She stated that this time around, she had many more commitments besides recording, and other projects that she wanted to do. One of these was being asked to perform at the annual event, PopTech on October 23. At this event, she included one of her new songs, "Wait it Out" in the set, as well as performing one of her original songs, "Speeding Cars." Even though she has struggled meeting the recording goals she has set up, Heap stated that she is about a month away from finishing the album.
But, in an iBlogs, she stated the album was most likely being pushed back to an April-May release, due to the fact she wanted much promotion done, more so than with Speak For Yourself, also, a DVD was being produced to being sold with the album.
On March 12, Directcurrentmusic.com reported that the new album has an internal RCA release schedule date of July 14 with the song, "Canvas" being readied as the album's first official single and video. It was however reported by Imogen's webmaster, James, that while Canvas may be the first song everyone heard off the record, it is not the first single. He stated this in a topic on her official forum
Access Hollywood announced Imogen Heap's third solo album would be entitled, "Ellipse" and that the album would be released in August. This was confirmed by Heap on Twitter. On April 27, DirectCurrentMusic.com confirmed that the official internal release date is August 18. On May 9 Heap stated on her Twitter page that the albums release date had been pushed forward to August 4, and that her deadline for finishing the album will be May 25. On May 17 Heap Stated on her Twitter Page that she has one song left to complete, called "Between Sheets"
As of the beginning of June, the album has been finished, mixed and mastered. Press promos were sent out for printing June second. Also, the Canvas video (note that Canvas will not be the first single, although it will be the first song the fans get to hear in full) is to be released within the first two weeks of June.
It has also recently been revealed in an article that the Making Of Ellipse DVD will not be released with the CD, but will be released separately afterwards. Heap announced on her twitter page that Ellipse's first single will be "First Train Home".
As stated in the last two vBlogs of the "Making of..."-series published June 15, and also on her Twitter page, the definite release date will be the 24th of August for the UK and the 25th for the US and Canada.
As published on her official website, the 'Ellipse' tracklisting will now take the form of 13 songs in the final order of: 01. First Train Home, 02. Wait It Out, 03. Earth, 04. Little Bird, 05. Swoon, 06. Tidal, 07. Between Sheets, 08. 2 - 1 (formerly 'Pollyfilla'), 09. Bad Body Double, 10. Aha!, 11. The Fire, 12. Canvas and 13. Half Life.
In a final decision by Imogen Heap as stated by herself in vBlog #38, the previous title of 'Polyfilla' has been changed. As seen in the tracklisting above, this has been changed to "2-1", though reasons for this change are unknown.
Track 11, as explained by Imogen in vBlog #39 is a personal song fusing her personal home/family life and her musical/fan life together. It will be an instrumental track using minimally edited improvs from her trip to Maui. The name "The Fire" originates from the burning of a "special piece of wood" which bears considerable significance in the Heap family.
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