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Heap's debut album, i Megaphone (an anagram of "Imogen Heap") was released in 1998 internationally via Almo Sounds, and garnered critical acclaim, comparing the angst-filled tracks to work by artists such as PJ Harvey, Kate Bush and Annie Lennox. The album was a mixture of self-penned, self-produced tracks, alongside tracks co-written with, and produced by established producers such as David Kahne, Dave Stewart and Guy Sigsworth. Promotion for the record included a tour of America, where the album was becoming popular through word-of-mouth, and performances all around Europe. Three singles were commercially released in limited quantities in the UK; "Getting Scared" (available on CD and 10" vinyl), "Shine" and "Come Here Boy." "Oh Me, Oh My" was also sent to US radio stations, prior to "Oh Me, Oh My," in place of "Shine." Almo Sounds cut funding for the UK promotional tour, and gave Heap a deadline to deliver songs for her second album; she was told that they lacked "hit potential" and left her in limbo for over a year, worsened when it was announced that the record label had been sold to Universal and would be shut down and disbanded, with its repertoire of artists moving or leaving the label. Heap was one of the artists who was dropped from the label, leaving her without a record contract.
In her time in "limbo" with Almo Sounds, Heap appeared on two further UK singles; "Meantime", a track written by Guy Sigsworth and Alexander Nilere for the soundtrack to the independent British movie, "G:MT: Greenwich Mean Time" and "Blanket," a collaboration with Urban Species, which was commercially released on 2xCDs, as well as being available on the Urban Species album of the same name. At the same time, i Megaphone was licensed from Almo Sounds to Zora Records in Japan, who re-released and re-promoted the album in January 2002, featuring "Blanket," and a Frou Frou remix of one of her B-sides, "Aeroplane," a video to which was released exclusively to Japanese media. The album featured new packaging, all-new artwork, and a previously unavailable hidden track, entitled "Kidding," recorded live during her 1999 tour. Following the selling and disbanding of Almo Sounds, all versions of i Megaphone apart from the Japanese re-release are scarce in circulation, having not been re-printed since 1999. A Brazilian label, Trama Records, claim to hold the license to the record and have started re-printing copies of the album in limited quantities. The album was also released onto the USA iTunes Music Store in early 2006, and will be available via Heap's own digital download store later on in the year. In the gap between the end of promotion for i Megaphone internationally, and the re-promotion, Heap had also begun to think about her second solo album, and had started writing songs, both solo, as well as working with Guy Sigsworth; however, as she was left without a record deal, the songs were shelved.
Heap kept in contact with Guy Sigsworth, who had co-written and produced "Getting Scared" from i Megaphone. The initial idea was that Sigsworth would put together an album, featuring tracks written and produced by him alongside a singer, songwriter, poet or rapper, to be released under the name Frou Frou. Sigsworth himself was also having record label issues, as his band, Acacia were being ignored. Heap explains that Sigsworth invited her over to his studio, to write lyrics to a four-bar motif he had, with one condition - that she include the word "love" somewhere. The first line she came up with was "lung of love, leaves me breathless," and the Details album track, "Flicks," was born. A week later, Sigsworth phoned her up again, and together they wrote and recorded "Breathe In," and it happened again and again, until nearly half the album was completed. In December 2001, they made the conscious decision to form a duo together. Their first official release as "Frou Frou" was a remix of "Airplane" (renamed "Aeroplane") - a track they had written together at the time of "Getting Scared," which was used as a B-side on the "Shine" single - on the Japanese re-release of i Megaphone.
In August 2002, they released an album called Details and singles, "Breathe In," "It's Good To Be In Love" and "Must Be Dreaming" (the latter two were not commercially available). The album - a full collaboration between the duo, with Heap giving vocals to tracks they had written and produced together - was critically acclaimed, but did not enjoy the commercial success that had been hoped for, and in late 2003, after an extensive promotional tour of the UK, Europe and the USA, the duo were told that their record label, Island Records would not be picking up the option for a second album. They were, however, open to signing Heap as a solo artist; she declined, unwilling to entrust them with her career after their mistreatment of Details. She says, "If you had taken a shirt into a dry cleaners and they burned it, would you then go, 'Thanks very much. I'll bring in my other dry cleaning tomorrow'? You wouldn't. So I didn't take the deal." Heap and Sigsworth remain firm friends, and have worked together since the project, including their temporary re-formation in late 2003, when they covered the Bonnie Tyler classic, "Holding Out For A Hero", for the soundtrack to the highly successful movie Shrek 2, as the music producer had loved Details. Frou Frou saw a resurgence in popularity in 2004, when her album track "Let Go" was featured in the independent movie Garden State.
In December 2003, Heap announced on her web site that she was going to write and produce her second solo album, using her site as an online blog to update fans on progress, and even seeking them to be her A&R team for the lyrics to "Daylight Robbery" (which started out as a sample recorded for a television advert). Heap set herself a deadline of one year to make the album, booking a session to master the album exactly one year ahead in December 2004. Having seen how much her flat was now worth, thanks to a neighbour moving, she re-mortgaged her flat to fund production costs, including renting a studio (previously inhabited by UK grime artist, Dizzee Rascal), and purchasing instruments (as a birthday present to herself). During the year, demo versions of tracks were played on US radio station, KCRW, who had also supported the Frou Frou record. At the end of 2004, with the album completed, Heap premiered two album tracks online, enabling fans to purchase them prior to the album's release - "Just For Now" (which was up for a limited time as a Christmas gift), and "Goodnight And Go," which had been featured on the second season of hit US TV drama The O.C. early in the month. In April 2005, The O.C. featured another track, the sparse vocodered-vocal track, "Hide And Seek" in the moving closing scenes of the season two finale. The track was released immediately to digital download services, such as iTunes, in the USA, where it became an instant fixture in the chart. The track was released to iTunes UK on 5th July 2005 - the same day as the UK airing of the season finale - and peaked at #8 on the iTunes download chart, as well as entering the official UK download chart. The third season of the show featured her song "Speeding Cars" and closed with her haunting rendition of "Hallelujah", a Leonard Cohen song. The show's season one finale ended with a recording of the same song by artist Jeff Buckley. So therefore, the season three finale's closing song was the same song from the season one finale, performed by the same artist as the season two finale.
Due to her bad experiences with record labels in the past, Heap made a decision to put out the album on her own in the UK, starting her own record company, entitled Megaphonic Records. The album, entitled Speak For Yourself - as Heap had produced, written and done 'everything in between' on the record, including designing the artwork - is described by Heap as "more Madonna than Guns N' Roses, more Donnie Darko than Dirty Dancing... left of centre, electronically sprinkled magic dust over orchestral strings, harps and things, with great lyrics". It was released in the UK on July 18th 2005 on CD and iTunes UK, where it entered the top 10 chart; the initial 10,000 physical copies pressed also sold out quickly, distributed through large and independent record stores, and Heap's own online shop. "Hide And Seek", thanks to exposure from "The O.C", received radio attention from the popular UK radio station BBC Radio One, with DJ Scott Mills featuring it as his record of the week, and provoking strong reactions ("love it or hate it") from other DJs at the station. Due to popular demand, the track was commercially released on a special limited edition (1500 copies) 7" vinyl in the UK in September, featuring an exclusive instrumental, "Cumulus," to accompany the vocal-only A-side. The track has also been featured on downtempo compilation CDs, including The Chillout Session 2006.
In August 2005, Heap announced that she had licensed Speak For Yourself to Sony BMG imprint RCA Victor for the album release in the USA, Canada and Mexico. The album was released in November 2005, and debuted at #144 in the Billboard Top 200 album chart, with Heap appearing on the Hotel Cafe Tour as well as a mini-tour of her own to promote the record. In concert, Heap is a one-woman band, controlling the sound through her Apple Powerbook laptop, as well as singing and playing the piano and mbira. She also performed the album's second single, "Goodnight And Go" on The Late Show with David Letterman on 11th January 2006 (having been scheduled for the day before, and cancelled moments before going on due to time constraints) and both "Hide And Seek" and "Goodnight And Go" on Last Call With Carson Daly. When she returned from the USA, having sold over 120,000 copies, she announced tour dates for the UK, which saw her playing to a crowd of 2000 at the Shepherds Bush Empire in March 2006.
Heap also announced, on her return to the UK, that she had signed a deal for the album to be released internationally, as well as re-promoted in the UK, with a new imprint of Sony BMG, entitled White Rabbit, run by former Sony BMG UK A&R vice president Nick Raphael. The deal means that the album can have the push given by a respected major label, whilst Heap retains sole control, and the team she established for Megaphonic Records. Speak For Yourself was re-released on the label on 24th April 2006, ahead of a full promotional push on 15th May, a week after the second single, "Goodnight And Go," will be commercially released in the UK on CD, and special limited edition 7" vinyl. The single was remixed by Heap for radio, including elements from her live performance of the track, entitled 'Immi's Radio Mix', and is accompanied by a brand new B-side, "Speeding Cars," which she performed at tour dates in the UK in February and March. The video to the track, which is featured on the CD release, hit MTV and VH1 UK in early April, before being added to other television channels later in the month. A special edit of the video for the US market was released in late April, and "Speeding Cars" and Immi's Radio Mix of the single were made available via iTunes a few days later, to coincide with her appearance at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival and on "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno". Beginning this fall, she will be touring throughout the UK (in later September and early October), and an extensive US tour is being planned for November & December. She will also be scoring a soundtrack for a movie documentary about flamingos later in 2006.
