Imogen Heap is an English music artist from London. She composes, writes, mixes and produces all of her own music (minus a couple of her endeavors).
I want to highlight Imogen Heap as much more than a musician because the way she goes about creating music (especially her more recent projects) relies a lot on the creative process of getting to the final product.
While being classically trained in clarinet, cello and piano at a young age, she taught herself computer-processed mixing (an alternative route to rigid music schooling).
Imogen started a solo career with her iMegaphone album, but was soon dropped by her label shortly after. She then joined forces with producer Guy Sigsworth to create the musical duo Frou Frou, who's music gained some notoriety and popularity by appearing in various films and television shows. While the album was critically acclaimed, commercially it went unnoticed.
Imogen then returned to her solo career with her 2005 album Speak For Yourself, he most successful album yet (and my personal favorite).
in 2006, she was nominated for two Grammys.
In 2007, Imogen started diving in to a more process-heavy type of music production. While Imogen has been prone to using vocoders and complicated mixing, with the creation of her 2009 Album Ellipse, it rose to a completely new level. Heap spent 2 years recorded various sounds (like car horns, ticks, beeps, creeks, wind act act) to create a number of tracks for her album, which is best listened with headphones, as Imogen plays heavily with L and R headphone capability, something that is not common in contemporary pop music. She was nominated for 2 more Grammys for this album.
Imogen went even further with her creation of #heapsongs in 2011/2012/2013. Each song is extremely processed with every day sounds and pushes her creativity and artistic vision beyond what any other contemporary pop mixer has done before.
Imogen most recently has premiered new "Glove" technology. The gloves, combined with her voice, create music and synths through movement and mixing (something unheard of until its premiere by Imogen.)
Imogen Heap is at the forefront of bringing new technology into music production, and her creative art-process when creating her works are remarkable.
Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/arts/music/10play.html?ref=arts&_r=0
http://www.radiusmusic.co.uk/imogen_heap.php
http://www.imogenheap.com/
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