Imogen Heap

Photo: Jeremy Cowart

No doubt about it, British singer Imogen Heap has had a particularly twisted career trajectory. She debuted as a solo artist in 1998, and after several years of record-label purgatory she teamed up with collaborator Guy Sigsworth as Frou Frou. The slick trip-hop duo released a lone album, Details, in 2002 but managed to score a top ten hit with “Breathe In.” In Indonesia. Frou Frou hit its own label snags and, following some creative conflict, Heap was soon back out on her own again.

Salvation came through a common and regrettable indie-popularity enzyme: Zach Braff. The Scrubs ham threw Frou Frou on his Garden State soundtrack, and soon Imogen Heap was the official voice of yuppie soap scores.

Reinvented as an ethereal but still pop-minded electronic artist and aided by some prime song placement, Heap connected. But Ellipse, her follow-up to 2005’s breakthrough Speak for Yourself, doesn’t quite justify the long wait. For a technological whiz, Heap plays it disappointingly safe. The album’s fitfully dark but comfortably so, curious and eclectic but too classy to pass as truly strange.

Fortunately, she’s better at finding a more compelling middle ground between process and personality when she hits the stage, where her somewhat affected eccentricities translate into a quirky charisma, and her micro-managed laptronica loosens up just enough to allow more spontaneity to slip out. Plus, you don’t have to look into Braff’s or McDreamy’s puppy-dog eyes in the club.

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