Imogen Heap • Speak For Yourself

First the facts: Speak For Yourself is Imogen Heap’s second solo effort. Her first, I Megaphone, was released in 1998. Somewhere in between, she achieved a degree of success through her collaboration with Guy Sigsworth in the form of Frou Frou, releasing Details, an electronica album with hidden depths and the first hint of what was to come. After the party, however, it seems everyone else went home, so what’s a girl to do?

Easy! Re-mortgage the flat and spend a year of her life writing and recording an album and issuing it under her own label, Megaphonic. What’s that you say, sounds like a rubbish idea? Hardly! Through word of mouth alone in the UK and ‘The OC’ effect in the States, Heap sold 100,000 copies of Speak For Yourself off her own back. Now, SonyBMG have bought the distribution rights and re-released it behind some heavyweight promo. Cross your fingers the big boys know what to do with her, because Heap has crafted a thing of beauty. You can hold every minute of this album up to the light and it sparkles. It’s all Tiffany, no Ratners.

It’s not immediately obvious why it’s so good. A busy sound, conjured from banks of computers and organic instruments, presents itself as the modern equivalent of early ‘80s synth culture, with added orchestra, guitars and, for all I know, the kitchen sink. Eno beeps, Trevor Horn synths, fuzz bass, multi-layered vocals — you name it, Speak For Yourself has got it; there’s value for money here, but given bold brush, a sense of space and warmth. This isn’t a cold record; the melodies are beautiful. And then it hits you: it’s the lyrics. The words are worthy of Neils Tennant and Finn and all the songwriting geniuses who know that pop works best when it doesn’t treat its listeners like idiots. They capture perfectly the way our emotions play and are played with, in a contemporary language that pulls no punches.

For example, on ‘Just For Now’, Heap dissects a long-term relationship with bruised resignation over the space of one afternoon’s dinner party and three minutes of haunting music: “How did you know? It’s what I always wanted, you can never have too many of these.” You’ve heard that before, right? How about: “Bite tongue, deep breaths, count to ten, nod your head… whoever put on this music had better quick sharp remove it, pour me another, and don’t wag your finger at me”. Is that affecting enough for you? On the a cappella ‘Hide & Seek’, a vocoder’d hymn to betrayal, Heap sings “Mm what d’ya say? Oh, that you only meant well, well of course you did, that it’s all for the best, of course it is, mm that it’s just what we need, you decided this?” — I can’t do it justice in a review, you have to hear it to know she’s lived it.

Superlatives are bandied around far too often. Each new find is the next big thing and then a future footnote in the gossip columns. Heap won’t win everyone over — that’s the beauty of opinion — but this lifelong music obsessive is happy to go on record and state that Speak For Yourself is the most consistent, wonderfully inventive and stick-it-on-repeat record he’s heard in the last 18 months. Speaking for myself. And I’ve broken my word count to try and convince you.

[White Rabbit / SonyBMG; April 8, 2006]

Tagged imogen heap, speak for yourself