Details
Track Listing
1. First Train Home
2. Wait It Out
3. Earth
4. Little Bird
5. Swoon
6. Tidal
7. Between Sheets
8. 2-1
9. Bad Body Double
10. Aha!
11. Fire, The
12. Canvas
13. Half Life
| Details | | Producer: | Imogen Heap | | Distributor: | Sony Music Entertainment | | Recording Type: | Studio | | Recording Mode: | Stereo | | SPAR Code: | n/a |
Album Notes
Personnel: Imogen Heap (vocals, programming).
Recording information: The Hideaway.
It took seven years for Imogen Heap to follow her debut album I MEGAPHONE with her breakthrough SPEAK FOR YOURSELF (during which time Heap was in Frou Frou with Guy Sigsworth), so the four-year gap between it and its follow-up, ELLIPSE, feels relatively short. SPEAK FOR YOURSELF's stunning single "Hide and Seek" took on a life of its own, partly thanks to its use in a crucial scene in the teen drama THE O.C., but mostly because it was so spare and bittersweet. That sound was so distinctive; it would have been easy for Heap to fall into the trap of trying to recapture that magic. Instead, ELLIPSE is some of her most wide-ranging work, physically and musically speaking. Heap recorded the album in locations ranging from Hawaii, Fiji, and Thailand to her home studio. While only a few songs feel overtly globe-trotting, like "2-1"'s slightly Eastern melody and the eco-conscious "Earth"'s African-tinged arrangement, ELLIPSE's well-traveled origins are revealed in the immediacy and urgency of its songs. Heap has a gift for crystallizing unique emotions in her music, and that's especially true of "Little Bird," which contrasts slightly dark meditations on everyday life ("Orange juice, concentrate/Crossword puzzles start to grate") with the musical equivalent of sunbeams, and "Between Sheets," which mixes romantic bliss and bubbly electronics so completely, it suggests her bed might be on a spaceship. Heap takes listeners on a tour of characters and attitudes far more eclectic than her previous albums, from "Bad Body Double"'s sassy rant about a copycat to "Wait it Out"'s breakup aftermath. Throughout it all, she never loses the slight oddness that makes her music so distinctive. Soft but far from sedate, ELLIPSE might not have a single moment as arresting as "Hide and Seek," but it's some of Heap's most engaging work.
Industry Reviews
Her third solo album adds teaspoons of ice and melancholy to an otherwise comforting brew, then melts them away, recalling the Postal Service's mix of the human and machinelike...
Billboard The opening track/lead single, 'First Train Home,' is her best shot yet at radio, with a dewy Dido electro-sheen but with more literate lyrics.
Heap toys with vocals -- shapes, timbre, harmonies, surface texture -- in a manner unheard since the salad days of Tori Amos.
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