SOUNDTRACK: FROU FROU-Details (2002).
Many years ago I bought Imogen Heap’s debut album because it was described as being similar to Tori Amos’ work. I think that it’s really closer to someone like Heather Nova, but regardless, it was enjoyable, with her cool voice that had an unexpected falsetto thing that I rather liked.
I promptly forgot about her, although the single “Come Here Boy” stuck with me. I was recently turned on to Frou Frou somewhere even though this album came out almost ten years ago. Since a decade is a long time I can’t recall if 2002 was the time of this sort of music or not (well, Dido came out in 1999, so maybe this was the tail end?)
Anyhow, this album plays nicely into the continuum of slightly more complex than normal pop songs sung by a woman with a cool if not unique voice. Heap provides the vocals, and I suppose the most notable quality is her breathiness. She seems to be able to sing in a whisper, which is pretty neat and, again, there’s that falsetto which doesn’t seem to get higher so much as otherwordly.
She’s an excellent match for Guy Siggworth who creates music (at least I assume he did the music, I’m not sure how it was divided exactly) that is interesting and electronic but also soft and welcoming. Despite the fact that the music is obviously a dude with a keyboard, his choices are not electronic and dancey, they are more enchanting (although they are also very catchy and dancey).
They work wonders as a team, and if you miss this sort of not-pure pop album (circa 2000), this is a great disc to pick up. Heap’s voice may be one to get used to, but I find it far more engaging than the autotuned voices circa 2010.
A couple of stand out tracks include: “Must Be Dreaming” which has some especially nifty effects that make the song stand out. The most Björkian song “Psychobabble” also offers cool sound effects which take it well out of the pop realm (her voice is particularly cool on this track). And “Maddening Shroud” is probably the best poppy song I’ve heard in a long time.
[READ: January 11, 2011] “The King of Norway”
In my mind Amos Oz is a capital-A Author, somehow promising Thoughts. Maybe it’s because he writes in Hebrew. Maybe it’s because of the mystical name Oz, but he seems like a Prophet or something. And in that respect, I suppose I am simply not full of Grace enough to get the Point of this story.
I know that it is utterly unfair to hold this man up to these made up standards, especially since I’ve never actually read him before. But that’s all moot, because I feel like there’s more to this than meets the eye and I am just not that interested in finding out what.
It’s utterly coincidental that tonight we watched the first half of A Serious Man (which also features Hebrew prominently), but I am suffused with Jewish thought this evening. (I enjoyed A Serious Man a lot more than this story, by the way). (more…)
I Just Read About That... 