Imogen Heap @ Music Hall of Williamsburg

December 8, 2009 - Brooklyn, NY

by Amanda Hatfield

Imogen Heap @ Music Hall of Williamsburg - Brooklyn, NY - December 3, 2009 - Photos by Amanda Hatfield

Imogen Heap brought her tour to a stunning conclusion on December 3 at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, celebrating her new album, Ellipse, and the announcement earlier in the week of some Grammy nominations. Billboard Live broadcast the show as it was happening on their site, and you can still check out a stream of it here. Opening (and absent from the webcast) were two of her bandmates, Back Ted N-Ted and Tim Exile. Watching both experimental acts was a good introduction to what to expect from the evening. Back Ted N-Ted looped his guitar and voice, and Tim Exile sampled bits of voices and sounds on the spot to create dance music. We were also treated to a couple of songs from a special guest, cello player extraordinaire Zoe Keating, who would also play later on some of Heap's songs.

Imogen Heap and her merry band of noisemakers exist somewhere on the border of pop and electronica. Heap herself has a lovely soaring voice, and she augments it with keyboards, a piano, and a wide variety of unusual instruments and objects: small bells, a singing tube, an odd gold contraption scraped at with a bow. The sounds made by these and picked up by mics wired to her wrists, and looped throughout the songs. It's easy to get caught up in curiosity over the technical hows and whys of all of this, until Heap (a tall, lanky presence on stage with teased hair and sequined leggings) opens her mouth and starts to sing. Then, all you can think is how awesome it all sounds. ~ Amanda Hatfield

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Back Ted N-Ted



Tim Exile

Zoe Keating



Imogen Heap