mahabis music // imogen heap's entanglement

2014 is proving to be a renaissance year for british sonic music pioneer imogen heap. in march she launched her concept album sparks. the album hardly had any tracks attached, but rather a series of suggestions, when unleashed on the public. heaps is creating the tracks every three months from 'sound seeds' sent by fans. this bold interactiveness and inventiveness is one of her unofficial trademarks.

in april, she posed for this series against the canadian landscape, photographed by jeremy cowart and retouched by nick leadlay. we love the richness of the heavy landscape against her ethereal, almost glowing form. 

the windswept feel and blending of natural and synthetic texture reiterate her music perfectly. while you see her dramatic gestures centre stage, you never get to see into her eyes. nothing is too easy or obvious.

the photos look like they have been cut from an epic meandering tale that could just as easily be in the undefined past, as in the future. they are just carefully underprocessed to give them a sense of slick rawness.

heap performed tracks from sparks as the artist/curator of reverb festival of electronica in london in august. also on sparks, but conceived in a different manner, is entanglement. originally written for the twilight film breaking dawn, the haunting tune never made the final cut. the video for the song was shot with just her and her filmmaking partner, michael lebor, present. 

'it was a very intimate shoot and I didn’t want anyone else in the room,' says lebor. 'an added challenge given that the camera only recorded 10 seconds of super slow-motion at a time, so I kept having to jump up and run across the room to press 'end record', not wearing very much.' we think those short takes compliment her music perfectly.

this is the fourth album for heaps, who was discovered in the early 90s, at the age of 18, by nick kershaw, and has always chosen to experiment and let commercialism find her. in recent years she has collaborated on music apps with intel uk, and the tech company is a collaborator on one of sparks' tracks.

in november, heap and lebor are expecting their first child.

for more on imogen heap go to imogenheap.co.uk