Remember 2004's coming-of-age clich fest Garden State? I know you'd rather not, but recall the airport scene at the end, when Zach Braff's character reconnects with Natalie Portman. Yeah, it's all real touching and shit, but the only stand-out feature of the film was the song being played as we bared witness to its all-too-predictable resolution: Frou Frou's “Let Go.”
Imogen Heap might be best known for her work as one-half of that now-disbanded electro-pop group, but she's had her own solo career for quite some time now, releasing i Megaphone in 1998 and Speak for Yourself in 2005. While “electro-pop” seems a bit vague, Heap kind of sounds like she belongs on one of those Pure Moods comps that were released by Virgin in the '90s—yeah, the CDs with those commercials that barraged us with clip after clip of Enya, Enigma and DJ Dado (laugh now, but it was actually the first compilation to make the Billboard charts).
Her vocoder-heavy tracks have gone on to garner attention from even more films and television shows, assigning her the role as one of those voices we've all heard somewhere before, but just don't have a name to attribute it to. Since Garden State, two of Heap's solo tracks, “Goodnight and Go” and “Hide and Seek” have been featured on The O.C.—which, of course, gave her instant success in the iTunes music store. She's also contributed to the soundtracks for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and Wardrobe; Six Feet Under; and Just Like Heaven.
That being said, Heap's albums full of schmaltzy and embellished tracks are perfect for those month-long aural flings we engage in every now and then.
But I'm begging you: lay off the Garden State references for just a while, please?
Imogen Heap with Zoe Keating at the Glass House, 200 W. Second St., Pomona, (909) 865-3802; www.theglasshouse.us. Tues., 7 p.m. $15. All ages.
