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Underground > Radio & Music >

STMTCG: Imogen Heap "Hide and Seek"

15:44 / 21.02.06

"Hide and Seek" by Imogen Heap.

Have you not heard this song? It seems like for a while it was everywhere online, but then it sort of faded into the background.

I love this song stupidly.

I love it because of the turn in the middle, where it seems like it'd be heading into a bridge but then it never comes back.

I love it because it takes that quirky novelty sound of vocoders and uses it in a beautiful way, like violins in a chamber group, or like Neil Young did in Trans.

I love that it takes that typical C-G-Am-F progression in Every New Wave Song Ever ("So Lonely" by the Police, "With or Without You" by U2) and turns it into something new and strange. (It's the same way The Police's "I'll Be Watching You" transmogrifies that C-Am-F-G progression that's in Every 50s Ballad Ever -- how'd they do that?)

And I love the disconnected imagery -- crop circles in the carpet... trains and sewing machines... and the weirdly significant they were here first.

I kind of think it's a song from the point of view of the ghost of a dead relationship. Not either party to the relationship, but the relationship itself. There's that weird feeling of emptiness, and repeated references to residue -- oily marks on bedroom walls, falling dust, circles on the carpet (where I think the furniture legs used to be before they moved it all out). It's a beautiful song about grime and emptiness.

Here's Imogen Heap's MySpace Page (more mp3s there)

And you can watch the video here (it's just as sparse as the arrangement).

15:54 / 21.02.06

It's the Frou Frou girl!

17:17 / 21.02.06

I prefer Goodnight and Go.

02:47 / 22.02.06

Tell me everything I need to know about Frou Frou.

13:04 / 22.02.06

The track listing for "Garden State" is as follows:

1. "Don't Panic" - Coldplay
2. "Caring is Creepy" - The Shins
3. "In the Waiting Line" - Zero 7
4. "New Slang" - The Shins
5. "I Just Don't Think I'll Get Over You" - Colin Hay
6. "Blue Eyes" - Cary Brothers
7. "Fair" - Remy Zero
8. "One of These Things First" - Nick Drake
9. "Lebanese Blonde" - Thievery Corporation
10. "The Only Living Boy In New York" - Simon & Garfunkel
11. "Such Great Heights" - Iron and Wine
12. "Let Go" - Frou Frou
13. "Winding Road" - Bonnie Somerville

The girl's voice is distinctive, and the song I liked cause it was all about growing the fuck up. That's the extent of what I know. But Google and Wiki know a bunch!

froufrou.net
wiki on Frou Frou
inkblot review

Scrambled Password Bogus Email

15:59 / 22.02.06

grant, I suspect you would love Acacia Cradle.

Probably hard to get hold of now, it's a Guy Sigsworth project (he produces much of Imogen Heap's output, though not, curiously, Hide and Seek) which featured Imogen on BV's and lead on a couple of tracks...it's really strange, high production value early Pro Tools music, and has Sigsworth's signature sound all over it...I love it, and I think it was Imogen Heap's recorded debut...

I also love 'Hide and Seek', if that wasn't obvious.

01:32 / 23.02.06

Right now this song is My Most Favorite Thing Ever For The Next Week, but I have to say, grant, you may have been responsibe for a dimming of my enthusiasm.

I love the chorus, the vocoder, the way the song is built, but the thing is, the tone of it conveys, to me, warmth, security and a whole host of emotions that are more apprpriate for a lullabye. I'd heard this song a number of times before but never really focussed on the lyrics (I usually don't, not for the first five listens or so). Now, for me, there's a dissonance between the content of the music and the content of the lyrics.

13:00 / 23.02.06

Frou Frou were, as hinted at above, Guy Sigsworth and Imogen Heap. One album, Details, which I'm quite fond of, especially opener Let Go.

Sigsworth is an arranger, producer, and keys player; he's done a lot with Bjork, whom he met because he was the live harpsichord player on her tour; from there, he got more involved with her.

I'd check out their album if you like Heap's voice, because it's essentially the same kind of pop shaped around that, but as a genuine two-piece rather than a vocalist plus supporting artists/producers.

02:56 / 20.09.06

I just heard Hide and Seek for the first time last night at the end of CSI:Miami.

Quite impressed and will be finding more.

When I heard it was by Imogen Heap I thought How much they dont sound like they used to. My mind was thinking Uriah Heap. Stupid Mind.

16:18 / 20.09.06

Now, for me, there's a dissonance between the content of the music and the content of the lyrics.

I seek that out. It's what I like about, well, most of the bands I like, but it's kind of in The Long Winters' charter. Mopey, melancholy songs with like soaring choruses, horn sections and even, every so often, the high-hat hitting eighth notes with accents on the back beats (like disco).
(It's much easier to describe that as tsh-wah-tsh-wah-tsh-wah, but that doesn't make as much sense in typing.)
Not that that has anything much to do with Imogen Heap, but there you go.