Hitting the high notes

You can’t miss the tousled hair and the boho look that she carries off with such aplomb.

Dig deeper and you discover her infectious charm and an ingenious musical mind — all part of this incredible package called Imogen Heap or ‘Immi’, as she is popularly known amongst her fans.

And from what we saw during her visit to India, last year, there is surely no dearth of fans for this British, Grammy award winning musician who drew in the crowds at each of her performances in Pune, New Delhi and Mumbai.

Add to that, an extensive fan following in the world of social networking, and the numbers turn her into somewhat of an online sensation, with millions of followers on facebook, Twitter, MySpace and You Tube put together.

A mention of this phenomenal connect with her virtual fans has her simply saying, “It’s important for me to have a channel through which I can reach out to people and for them to tune in to me. I never see it as a marketing tool. My relationship with the online world began with a blog. And then when I started getting responses from people who were excited to know about my music, it gave me the motivation and momentum to build it further.”

It is this desire to connect with the audience that led this charismatic singer-songwriter, composer and multi-instrumentalist, to ask listeners to send in sound bites and words which she splendidly employs in her songs. “The highlight of my song Lifeline from the fourth album was that, when I asked people to send in sound samples, they came in from all over the world.

There were a zillion sounds pouring in from all over, including samplers from their iPhones, the sound of someone shaking a glass bottle or an egg in a bowl… even my newborn niece’s heartbeat, while she was still in her mother’s womb, were included. It was exciting to put it all together,” she says and candidly goes on to admit to have even recorded the sound of slapping on her bum and incorporating it in one of her earlier songs, Bad Body Double!

Trying out new things and experimenting with new sounds have always come naturally to Heap. For someone who started writing songs at the age of 13, she went on to teach herself how to play the guitar, drums, percussion instruments as well as sequencing, music engineering, sampling and production. She also trained formally to play the piano, the cello and the clarinet. But what really sets Imogen a world apart from any other musician is her uncanny ability to marry a whole range of musical genres and sounds with modern technology to produce some phenomenal music.

“As a kid, I always liked creating stuff and with time, have got better at it,” she says with a smile. Today, she is known for her distinctive brand of music which is a fine mix of electronic, rock, alternative, pop, folktronica and classical.

Indian music too finds a place in her songs, with the latest one being, Minds Without Fear. A whole new song composed at the Samode Palace in Rajasthan, where she collaborated with music director duo Vishal-Shekhar on the TV show, The Dewarists.

Speaking of the experience, she says, “It was a challenge because we had so little time to compose the song, but a part of me was also excited, for I’ve always wanted to sing in Hindi, as I love the sound of the language. And what I love about Indian music is that, it’s like a saree — beautiful and complex, and yet it flows so well.”

While Imogen’s songs have always earned her favourable reviews, watching her perform on stage is a whole new experience altogether. All in all, a highly theatrical performance, where she blends her unique voice with quirky musical instruments, what with the sound of dangling bells and wine glasses being fused with high-tech gadgets like the music gloves that were her brainchild, simply add to the drama.

“Through the wireless gloves, I have developed a way of being as fluid as possible on stage and to be as expressive with hand gestures as I’m shaping the music. And it is through these gestures that I’m changing values, levels, notes on the laptop, rather than going to the keyboard and pressing a chord to play. The gloves can even record my voice and play it back. At the moment, I can do a lot of things with them,” she explains.

Her unconventional approach to making music has seen her come out with three solo albums, while Ellipse (2009) earned her two Grammy nominations and won her the award for the Best Engineered Album, Non-classical.

Her earlier work comprises the debut album iMegaphone (an anagram of her name), which was followed by the collaborative project, Frou Frou. Some of Heap’s solo work has also appeared in TV shows such as O.C., Grey’s Anatomy and CSI NY along with films like The Chronicles of Narnia.

Her upcoming fourth solo album comprises five songs, including Xizi She Knows, released on January 23, 2012, the Chinese New Year. Through Xizi She Knows, which is also being translated into Mandarin, Imogen tries to capture the everyday events in the lives of the people in Hangzhou, China, in an effort to “grab the essence of the city and add an artistic accompaniment to it”. She humbly claims it to be her most ambitious project till date.

As for coming back to India, she says, “I want to come back to India again to explore the country with my partner and spend some quality time with him. The last time we were here, we travelled on the Maharaja Express and our favourite day was when we got off the train and cycled around a local village.” Smiling her infectious smile from ear to ear, she adds, “I love Indian food, especially matar paneer. I have to come back to eat the real stuff as my journey here has just begun.”