Ok, cool...

Imogen Heap's new single, "Lifeline", is above. Supposedly inspired by the recent tragedies in Japan, and constructed from fan submitted-sounds and snippets.

Now, let us say first off: we like this. We listened to it, our ears didn't bleed, it was pleasant, we were tempted to repeat. But for such a supposedly innovative way of constructing popular music, this doesn't set our face, hearts, arse or mind on fire. It's lovely, sure. But you can't necessarily tell, especially in the context of Imogen's other, equally multi-textural, ambitious work, that this has been patchworked together from fan submissions. And another thing.

Whilst, musically, Imogen Heap has always been immaculate and sumptuous and exquisite and wonderful, visually she has always let us down. What something like this needed to lift it, really, was, at the very least, a wonderful and eye-catching promo pic to accompany it. But no, nothing.

Shiny & New Turns 2: #4 "First Train Home" - Imogen Heap

"The urge to feel your face / In blood, rushing to paint my handprint"

Of all the many modes of public transport (bus, tram, airplane, coach, rocket, shuttle, golfcart) the medium I have perhaps utilised most often in my lifetime is: the train. This is because I'm a middle class university student who in his first year of study went home to get his washing done every month (CLICHÉ ALERT) but also because I've been in a long-term and, more pertinently, long-distance relationship for the past two years (don't believe the myth, they do work). Travelling by train is wonderful, perhaps not in every country (although I've experienced spectacular ones in New Zealand and Japan) but especially in England. All that lush countryside, an occasional spattering of rain. You can read without getting motion sickness. You can eavesdrop, and even nowadays plug in your laptop if you're that addicted to technology.

And no, this is not covert train product placement: I could write an essay on how dreadfully overpriced tickets are, how awful and rude and jobsworthy some of the staff can be and how slow and late they often seem to be. But there is something about taking them - that sense of possibility those glimpses you get into other people's lives (both fellow passengers and whatever civilization you might pass on your journey), and that excitement about what lies at the other end. Imogen Heap, an unfairly skilled songwriter and criminally underrated sonic innovator released "First Train Home" in 2009 and it was met mostly with disappointment. After her almost breakthrough on previous album, Speak For Yourself, punters (perhaps understandably) craved something akin to "Hide & Seek" - a masterpiece of a song, if now, irritatingly overexposed - which made her a relative star when it was used in the finale for that show about those bored teenagers in California exploring, as some old article in the Guardian Guide once said, every nuance of the word 'hey'.

But to me "First Train Home" wasn't a disappointment. It eschews high-concept production gimmicks for a sonic landscape that sounds unique but familiar (like train carriages, platforms and stations... do you see where I'm going with this?) and a sense of overarching narrative that is also satisfyingly circular (it feels like it returns from whence it came(th)). The song may not be about a young gay idiote returning, melancholy but ecstatic from a weekend with his boyfriend, but as is often the case with music I love, the lyrics and specific meanings melted away as I put this on repeat, and the feel of the whole thing enveloped me.

Albums of the Year '09!

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's late! But 'better late than never' is what they say. So it's what we shall deliver. Here are our top 10 albums of '09. Twas a stellar year! Gushing and platitudes start here:

Blue Roses – Blue Roses
You may not have a clue who Yorkshire singer and multi-instrumentalist Blue Roses is, but if anybody can lay claim to Kate Bush’s ethereal, British folk throne it’s her. Her alternately wild, then almost classical voice and sound, contrasted with cut glass piano and spindly violin make for a debut album of authentic and sheer beauty.

Ellipse – Imogen Heap
We can’t think of another album we have waited as much for as this one. A mixed bag of emotions and moods like it’s predecessor, Ellipse brings us a song titled “Swoon” which somehow makes us actually swoon, a song named “First Train Home” which actually makes us want to go home and a track entitled “Canvas” which while having nothing to do with canvases, takes us to an Ibiza beach round about sunset, mojito in hand. Bliss.

Fever Ray – Fever Ray
Karin Dreijer Andersson has stated that this may be the first, last and only album she’ll release as solo witch doctor-cum-electro warrior Fever Ray. If it is, then what a rare and troubling treat. Ms. Andersson had always made music as beautiful as it was horrifying as one half of The Knife, but here she did it alone, and created a unique and wonderful soundscape in doing so.

Lungs – Florence + the Machine
We began the year with a poisonous dislike for Ms. Florence due to a certain “Kiss With a Fist” being a pile of utter shite, but that was easily mellowed into a blossoming, ever-growing (even to this day) affection for what a million and one people have already termed “the new Kate Bush”. Plucking away at our heart strings with the same ease she shows with her harp, Lungs can do no wrong. A genuine classic.

Music For Men – Gossip
While the year may have seen a rollercoaster in terms of how popular Gossip stand with your S&N writers, this record is undoubtedly a step in the right direction and completely their best work yet. Whoever’s idea it was to bring synthesisers, house pianos and just a tad of disco into the mix deserves a big sweaty motorboating on Ditto’s tits.

Rated R – Rihanna
Thought you were left reeling in shock at Rihanna’s transformation from just-another-R&B-label-puppet to world’s biggest and bestest popstar in 2007? Well how about when post-trauma and publicity whirlwind, she came out with an album brooding, dark, cohesive, challenging, clever and still unmistakeably her?

Speech Therapy – Speech Debelle
Say what you will about Speech Debelle, but any woman willing to rap so candidly about trouble and angst against a backdrop of baroque strings, shuffling cymbals, sugar-spun guitar and haunting piano without ever bragging about or glorifying gratuitous sex or violence was brave and brilliant indeed.

xx – The xx
Minimalist name, minimalist album. From reading their influences (Aaliyah, Mariah Carey, Ginuwine) you’d be forgiven to think they would be bordering on N-Dubz territory. Couldn’t be further apart. A sparse, sweeping landscape of blips and beeps, contrasted with two hauntingly beautiful and moving voices make for a prime revision soundtrack and the finest companion of 2009 to fall asleep with. That’s a compliment by the way.

The Bachelor – Patrick Wolf
There are those who would have you believe that it doesn’t matter what an artist does in their private life, if the music is good, it’s good. And there are others who would have you believe it’s impossible to separate an artist’s body of work from their lifestyle choices or shenanigans. If you’re going to enjoy Patrick Wolf’s work you’re going to have to be firmly in the former camp. Mr. Wolf has made it increasingly difficult to like him over the past year or so. Fabricating stories for attention, showing his bare bottom in seedy and unsexy S&M videos, throwing multiple hissy fits, and lobbing heavy electronic equipment at music professionals in a seeming attempt to create an air of rebellion. Erratic and confounding behaviour.

Despite this The Bachelor is Patrick Wolf’s most coherent, lush and exciting album. From the pulsing, fluttering strings on energetic “Hard Times” to the exotic and glittery sitar on “Theseus” there is delight and cloudless beauty on almost every track. Tilda Swinton’s spoken interjections have not been to everyone’s tastes, but are chilling and reminiscent of Kate Bush and Eliza Carthy’s husky raucous cameo is both exhilarating and wonderfully pitched. Wolf may have parted ways with his major label for this work, but you wouldn’t guess. Here the string arrangements are thicker, deeper and more evocative and the songwriting more inventive and sophisticated. You may not see eye to eye with Patrick, and increasingly even his fans do not, but you can’t argue with an album so perfectly wrought and aesthetically stunning.

Two Suns – Bat For Lashes
From the moment you are introduced to this record with blood-chilling, mesmerising verse and lead into a trail-blazing, hairs-standing-up-on-the-back-of-your-neck inducing rollercoaster ride through all manner of instruments and vocal contortions, you will be in love with Natasha Khan and her two suns. “Moon and Moon” is a three minute lump-in-throat moment through and through, “Siren Song” is desperately gorgeous and “Daniel” is officially the most fabulous 80s throwback of 2009 – and we all know 2009 was the year of 80s throwbacks. The video for “Pearl’s Dream” has to be one of the fiercest pieces of celluloid put to music of the decade – that blonde wig, that snarling wolf... ooh it always gets us going! – and “Sleep Alone” is leering, intimidating and gorgeous in all the right places.

There seems to be this magical crossing of wires between Khan’s ethereal elfin voice, the vast array of intricately played instruments utilised and the lyrical atmospheres effortlessly evoked with ease. Her 2006 debut Fur and Gold presented an undeniably interesting character – an artist with a bag of tricks which seemed to show promise for many further, better creations. Two Suns can only be a step in that impending process. In the wake of Kate Bush’s departure from our musical landscape (ignoring for a moment her recent fabulous “comeback”) we were presented with countless ‘quirky’ individuals clawing for a piece of her crown. Bat for Lashes is no Kate Bush – she seems to be in a league of her own. She has complete control of the music she creates and it seems to be coming from a genuine, entrancing place – she isn’t being ‘weird’ for the sake of being weird, Natasha Khan is a weaver of the most delicate tapestries, pieces of art which can take you from your desk chair or your train seat and push you through a tunnel of breathless emotions.

Two Suns is not only one of the finest albums of 2009 but of the decade, and we are pleased to say it seems the British public have recognised this with the success the album found upon release. We can only hope this provokes further, what we can only term as, genius from Bat for Lashes. We await eagerly.

Stuck In Our Head: "Tidal" - Imogen Heap

Back when Regina Spektor's latest album came out, we did a feature on why ONE song ("Fidelity") had unfairly ruined her reputation as a brilliant and promising singer/songwriter and painted her as a one-song-kitschy-wonder type of gal. Well a similar thing happened to Imogen Heap. Imogen, despite being generally viewed as the type of musician who gets lucky once (in her case, landing the emotional glossy American TV series finale slot) and is never heard of again, is, of course, so much more.

Her new album continues her quest to unite wildly disparate musical influences, styles and instruments in an eddying, swirling flurry of electronic magic. Here, on "Tidal" she employs South-Asian flavoured strings and vocals in an lush and involving mini-epic. It's glorious, like the rest of Ellipse, and further proof that she is a brilliant and genuinely innovative talent in her own right. And not just the woman responsible for that song.

A yellowed Imogen Heap video...

Oh god, we have to try harder. It's a shame this video clip doesn't inspire anything in us. It could be the low quality, or the fact that it's not properly synced. It could be our teenaged dementia (copyright and trademark), or it could just be an overwhelming feeling of 'meh' towards the current medium of the music video. It could just be the wrong time of day (don't say it). Or it could be something in the water. Answers on a bulldog-shaped postcard, please.

Want to hear the new Imogen Heap single?

Well it's your lucky day, because 'Immi' herself has uploaded it in FULL HQ to her youtube account. We'd already had a listen to a radio rip and were far from impressed, but decided to reserve judgement. Having made loads of mistakes this year with regards to first impressions, we've now decided to uphold a policy of TAKING OUR TIME to form full opinions, as they almost always change for us. As did this. The initial indifference to this has melted away and been replaced with warm glowing appreciation. This song (it's called "First Train Home" 'bee tee double you') is not going to smack you in the face with its brilliance, it will simply wash over you like lapping waves or lush summer sun. If that's not enough for you, because you are a greedy twot, the official single artwork is below. It, amazingly, continues the current Imogen Heap artwork theme of ACTUALLY BEING GOOD AND AESTHETICALLY PLEASING. So points all round everyone.

Uninhibited loveliness...

In the past, Imogen Heap's album (and sometimes single) artwork has been dodgy at best. Blurry, only available online in low quality, or just aesthetically UNPLEASING, we've only tolerated it because we heart her music to an impossibly high degree. Well hopefull this'll all change because above is the album cover for her latest, Ellipse, something we're looking forward to very much. Immi (as she is affectionately known to fans and l00ns) held a competition this time to search for an album artwork artist, and it paid off, didn't it? Because this is lovely.

Intrigue! The Imogen Heap album tracklisting...

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. "The Fire"
12. "Canvas"
13. "Half Life"

Much intrigue abound in the new Imogen Heap album tracklisting. The 'work' is called Ellipse and it's out in the near future. "Bad Body Double" sounds inneresting, as do "Swoon" and "Aha!"... to be honest, some of them sound generic and uninspired ("Wait It Out" anybody?!?) but this is Imogen Heap we're talking about here so we fully trust in her ability to craft something completely genius and strikingly original.