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Tall Order
by Haven James

Preview: Imogen Heap at Joyous Lake, Sunday, 9/27/98

album cover: I Megahone

Album scan by JAM! Music
If you see her wandering around town before her gig this Sunday, September 27 [1998] at the Joyous Lake, Imogen Heap (her first name pronounced Ima-gin) will be hard to mistake. Pushing 20, she stalks roughly six-feet and sports a long, red/auburn mane. A musician since her earliest recollections, Heap's debut CD on Almo Sounds [AMSD-80017], I Megaphone, is said to encapsulate her life to date with summary impressions and responses to encounters along her path.

Conjuring images of very dark corners, confrontations, exaltations, and pleading passions, Imogen's statement as a singer/songwriter is anything but casual. "Would you take my candlelight" repeats in rounds over the serenade of the grand piano. Segueing into "Rake It In," heavy breath and bass raise the intensity of the muse, as sordid sounds creep in to color the scene, rising to threatening screams and the toying lyric, "Do you know what my chopping block is for?"

The resolution is in the magic, however--the ethereal, the vision. It is haunting, but not evil. Still, notions of a London techno-club with cat-masked patrons in black leather, strobes, and thick air come to mind almost as a soundtrack to a SIM from La Femme Nikita. "I am a mirror with no reflection," she sings, "I am a razor without my blade."

Heap's vocal range is rich with tones through tenor and alto sequences. Her background and training are in classical forms which mix into her progressive imaginings with ease and grace. She has gone in pretty deep with a lot of the stuff that drives her on this CD, and no doubt commands as much from her audience in performance. Aggressively animated and seductive, she intends to hypnotize, and doubtless does.

This will be the first appearance of Imogen Heap in Woodstock. She arrives here from a long week on the road that began in California last weekend, with stop-offs in Arkansas, Georgia, and Alabama, and she goes on to Pennsylvania from here. Perhaps the biggest notch in her resume was a performance for 150,000 at the Prince's Trust Concert in Hyde Park (London, England) between the sets by Eric Clapton and The Who. Now it's out to beat the drums across America and beyond for I Megaphone.

Call the Joyous Lake or check their web site for ticket information. As always, you can link to relevant resources including an album review from Werewolves on the Web at http://www.HVmusic.com or our link at the Woodstock Times http://www.woodstocktimes.com.


Haven James has been a consistent contributor to the Music & Arts scene around the Hudson Valley and beyond for almost a decade through his column, Werewolves of Woodstock, published weekly in the Woodstock Times

A writer, musician, philanthropist, and Mac addict; he lives reclusively, high atop Overlook Mountain with his son and a menagerie of animals, both wild and domesticated. Though currently unmarried, rumors abound as to his intimate relationships with Madonna, Sandra Bernhardt, and Eli Bach; though he insists these notions to be pure hearsay. His identity has remained a mystery to all but the closest of friends as he often travels in disguise and appears unannounced and undercover at concerts and venues in a dedicated effort to get the real story.

Go to the Werewolves of Woodstock page for more articles by Haven James.
Haven James can be contacted at werewolves@netstep.net

Posted on September 23, 1998

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