On a warm day in 2002, I was sitting in my room procrastinating about writing an article for one of my classes, with the TV on in the adjacent room. It was open on MTV when it still aired music videos a lot of the time.
Suddenly, an ethereal composition of electro pop filled in the air, beginning to drown out the sounds of the busy street pouring through my window. The beat and the voice made me stop whatever it is that I was procrastinating with, get up and go check out who this would be.
As I walked in, this low register voice was singing with such emotion with this beautiful woman running down a corridor.
“I must be dreaming of I don’t fall in love honestly”
I stood there enchanted. I got goose bumps up and down my spine; hair ends standing.
There was something so eclectic, light and bewitching that I felt listening to this song.
I felt as though I was flying or simply resting on the lightest cloud.
After that I went out and got the album “Details” within the same week and I fell in love with almost every track. I fell in love with Imogen Heap’s voice and the lyrics that were simple, stripped down and equally poetic and powerful. The music production and arrangement by her and Guy Sigworth captured me and turned me into a fan from the first listening.
The songs released off the album from “Breathe In” which leaves you longing for a lover you haven’t met before , “Let Go” that magically and instantly acknowledges your darkest thoughts ever so gently, and “It’s good to be in Love” making you fall in love with your lover even when they make you wait this whole time to acknowledge your love, all leave you fully awake in a state of dreaming.
And then there were the songs I discovered such as “Shh” leaving you drugged up and intoxicated with sensuality and wanting to melt into someone. The last song on the album “The dumbing down of love” leaves you heartbroken and yet you wouldn’t want to stop the heartache because the love before it was so euphoric.
The album evidently has the storyline and arch of the universal truth that we all go through: developing crushes that leave us helpless, hopeless, yet flying and falling in love from afar. Once we and when (if we are lucky) to get the chance to enjoy this love with the person we love, then it becomes about discovery. Finding the quiet moments and spaces, shh-ing and giggling to discover love through sensuality, moving to doubt and arguments as Imogen Heap sings “how do I do normal” and ending the story lamenting the void of “no more I love you’s” stripped down to a piano alone and Heap’s voice broken. The album end with a love that can break our hearts.
Now in June 2018, and this album and these songs, still teleport me to that initial reaction my body and mind had to Must be Dreaming; and that is of a floating and ethereal sensation that although I experience the music wide awake, I feel I am actually suspended in a dream. The lightness returns, the sensation I am in another plane of my reality is still present – powerful and ever so gentle.
I can’t pick favorite songs but I’ll just post a couple here for your listening.
I hope you enjoy this timeless oldie eclectic electro rock pop
Multidisciplinary Artist - Film/Photography/Writing/Art Installations 