Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
And about time too, 25 Aug 2009
It's been four years. Oh yes, it's been worth the wait.
After the wonderful patchy intimacy of 'Speak for Yourself' comes this: 13 exquisitely produced mature pieces of electro-pop.
From the sleeve notes: 'Produced, Engineered, Programmed and everything inbetween by Imogen Heap'. Saying that, she has an impressive array of backing musicians with her, including Nitin Sawhney amongst many others.
Look, it's worth buying the CD - to start with, you're going to get better quality than any download - and the sound quality counts on this album - and secondly, you'll get the lyrics and some striking pics of Imogen Heap in a dark, electric land.
The album opens with the beautiful, rolling 'First Train Home', rippling synth and syncopated lyrics - 'first train home, I've got to get on it, first train home, I've got to get on it': she wants to get on getting on, and the music rolls on.
'Wait It Out' starts strong - yes, it's the end of the affair, but she can just sit it out - but then it collapses into sad and simple intimacy: 'And sit here, Just going to wait it out, And sit here cold, Just going to sweat it out, Wait it out.'
'Earth' - wonderful a cappella, multi-tracked playfulness, not putting up with it anymore: 'Stop this right away, Put that down and clean this mess up, End of conversation, Put your back into it and make it up to me now'.
'Little Bird' almost reminded me of Alison Moyet's 'Only You' but multi-tracked vocals.
'Swoon' sounds like there's a theramin playing in the background, but again Imogen's hilarious, intimate lyrics: 'And this is where I was going to sing your name, Over and over again but I chickened out in the final minute'. Straight into the swelling, rising, falling, driving 'Tidal'. This really is a gorgeous album...
Oh, I can't go through every track, but you've got to listen to 'Between The Sheets', that simple piano, the intimate lyrics.
'Bad Body Double' - Yeah, I've got one of those too. Funky, pizzicato strings, almost Essex accent there.
There really isn't a weak track here. Shifting moods, some dark, most with a sweet self-awareness but overall a really strong, beautifully put-together collection of classic pop.
Definitely worth the wait.
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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Woman In Her Element, 26 Aug 2009
Imogen Heap would appear to have had to put up with
a lot of unpleasant shenanigans prior to the scheduled
release of her latest labour of love this week.
We must hope that she reaps the rewards that
she clearly deserves for all her hard work.
Always a distinctive singer and composer, her new
project Ellipse is in every way a real delight.
The vision of an artist never less than true to herself.
The estimable Ms Toast from Hull has already done the album
a great service with her lucid review so I will resist the
ungallant urge to produce a further track-by-track disection.
What sets Ms Heap well apart from the pack is her subtle sense
of the importance of melodic and rhythmic structure partnered
with her finely-honed lyrical sensibility.
Listen to the fractured arpeggios accompanying the delicate
harmonies of the magical vocal performance in 'Little Bird'.
As good as any musical reflection on a similar theme since
Joni Mitchell's 'The Hissing Of Summer Lawns' (1975).
They both have the ability to "smell rats in the kitchen" !
The scintillating candour of "Between The Sheets" is the album's
crowning glory. A gift of a song from a woman in love and not
afraid to shout it from the rooftops !
One of the most beautiful compositions I have heard this year.
The thirteen tracks in this collection do not
have one wasted breath within or between them.
Essential.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
a fan gets real, 17 Sep 2009
owning every works from imogen and via frou frou, i consider myself a fan of her music.
details by frou frou and speak for yourself by imogen are the highlights of both group and solo works respectively, in my opinion
this new album was a let down in some ways;
the lyrics and structure seemed contrived, with immature un-inspired talking pace nursery rhymes thrown in to try and flesh out the songs, a little to formulaic for my tastes
i thought the album was going to be a game of two halves when track 8 came on, and may prove to turn around and rescue the album, but then the album veered back to its dominant characteristics and carried on in the same shallow vein, not engrossing or immersing me like her other albums.
as far as i am concerned speak for yourself should have been the new album. and this should have been an early release from which she should have improved from, maybe even before imegaphone!
don't get me entirely wrong, the album isnt a bad album, comparitively i am pitting it against her own works, which are quite a high standard, its just this seems to have lost that raw imogen heap signature i enjoyed, where more angst and emotion were involved rather than the recital of infantile like words and lyrics in a seeming unrelated melting pot of lyrics.
i hope i am wrong in thinking that this may mark the end of the 'original' imogen heap and all works from now on in are going to be downhill, lets hope this is her creative lull and that in the future she returns to glory and puts out her equivalent to radioheads 'in rainbows' career wise.
to briefly summarise, as a light hearted electro pop album its fine in anyones collection, just maybe not an imogen heap fans.
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