Imogen Heap

Imogen Heap is a British singer who was born on December 9, 1977 in Essex, England. She took up music since her early years. Before she turned eleven, she had already started writing her own songs. The artist may rightfully be proud of her first live experience. She performed four songs between the performances given by The Who and Eric Clapton in Hyde Park in 1996. Heap’s debut album, called I Megaphone, arrived at the international music market in 1998 ad collected a rich harvest of praiseful reviews. In 2002, this record was re-released in Japan with one new composition, Blanket. Imogen recorded it in collaboration with Urban Species and issued it on the UK territory as a single. Unfortunately, the singer’s first studio work failed to reach wide audience because at the moment of its release in 1998, the label issuing it was sold over to a new owner. As a result, I Megaphone was released properly and in a required number only in the autumn of 2006.

Imogen Heap’s next step was a fruitful cooperation with the producer Guy Sigsworth. Together, they formed a project named Frou Frou to make up an album called Details and singles Breathe In, It's Good to Be in Love, and Must Be Dreaming. The band Frou Frou performed a cover of Holding Out for a Hero for the widely acclaimed Shrek 2. The formation’s main trouble was its label working in bad faith. The company ignored the interests of the musicians and showed no interest in active promotion of their material.

In December 2003, Heap announced on her personal site that she was about to start working on her sophomore solo album. She used her on-line blog to keep her fans updated about the developments of this progress. Having enough band experience of working with labels, the singer made up her mind to establish her own sound recording company. It was named Megaphonic Records. Imogen placed herself into very strict time frames giving herself only a year to complete the preparations of the new album. Late in 2004, she presented two tracks from the up-coming full-length record, available for downloading. These were compositions called Just for Now, and Goodnight and Go. In the spring of 2005, another song, Hide and Seek, from the album set to be released was posted on-line. It turned to be one of the most popular downloaded items on iTunes of that season.

The album itself, called Speak for Yourself, came to the market in the summer of 2005. The record could also be purchased through Internet, which increased its sales greatly. The abovementioned song Hide and Seek reserved a solid place in the airplay of the leading British radio stations gathering numerous compliments from the celebrated DJs. Following the example set by many contemporary performers, Imogen Heap released this song in a limited edition of 1,500 copies solely on vinyl. A Sony BMG division, RCA Victor, bought the rights to the album to distribute it in the USA, Canada and Mexico. The official release of Speak for Yourself in the countries of North America occurred in November 2005 shortly to be followed by the beginning of Heap’s tour to promote the album. Tow years later, the singer delighted her supporters with another piece of her art. That was an almost 100-minute lasting album called Ellipse.