iMogen Heap
iMegaphone (Almo)
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 I Megaphone, 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.
(360 N. Cienega Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90048)