Comments on: Imogen Heap Rocks The Monome On Letterman

By: Gordon

Gordon — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 06:13:34 +0000

I remember seeing her live show a couple of years ago and being gobsmacked by how many different pieces of gear she could juggle whilst dancing (slightly) singing (beautifully) and generally looking like a punk-fairytale princess.

By: anonymous

anonymous — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 22:37:52 +0000

i helped her with the monome setup and can assure you it was not faked or otherwise embellished.

she's using a combination of applications, i'm not 100% sure on the entire setup, but it looks like pages on the top half for the live looping and possibly scene triggering, polygome on the bottom left, and npc on the bottom right. this is all around an application called 'hub' that lets you split the monome into multiple zones, each one running a distinct application.

keep in mind she's only had the monome for a few weeks, i think the performance you saw on letterman was the result of one weekend of practice, probably less. so she's definitely a little nervous, not only with where everything is (because it's still fairly new to her) but also with the huge software stack. something could easily have gone wrong, luckily it didn't. i thought she did amazingly well given the circumstances.

even if you hate monomes and etc. you have to give her kudos for being brave and adventurous with the performance. she was panicking a bit at the last minute and tweeting about how she might just go acoustic with only piano, but i'm glad to see she went for it.

By: synthhead

synthhead — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 21:05:46 +0000

She's obviously a polished performer, but I liked that the performance wasn't "overly perfect".

By: Gordon

Gordon — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 20:46:43 +0000

I noticed one note sung at a different pitch to the album. She's become so talked about recently I was almost determined not to like said album. But it's good. Very good. Behind the hype… real content.

By: wi_ngo

wi_ngo — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:50:57 +0000

Amazing performance. Total pro, great song.

Can anyone surmise what Monome app she is rocking? Seven-Up Live, maybe? I definitely think she's playing it, but it is probably quantized with Live somehow.

By: Seamus

Seamus — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 17:39:50 +0000

@ JRice – There are a bunch of well-known monome patches out there that allow on-the-fly quantizing, AFAIK Ableton Live has it too, so it's not unfeasible.
I didn't notice the pitchyness you were on about, but then again, my ears are shot at the moment

Eitherway, I think she pretty-much just sold me the album on the stregnth of that performance – what a beautiful tune!

By: JRice

JRice — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 15:30:15 +0000

I only recently discovered Imogen Heap (and Frou Frou)… shame on me. Anyway, I've subsequently become rather obsessed. One of the finest talents I've heard in many years.

That said… I'm not *entirely* sure the monome was being played live. If you watch closely, her rhythm tapping isn't quite as… quantized as the audio. : ) Her vocals were also ever-so-slightly pitchy in places.

All THAT said… I still enjoyed it! : )

By: Crichton

Crichton — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 04:07:14 +0000

Wow, this is excellent !!!! The new album "Ellipse" is so tasteful, it's awesome ! Imogen rocks ! ;-D

By: Felippe Senne

Felippe Senne — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 03:57:16 +0000

ableton rocks!

By: @bbthefantastic

@bbthefantastic — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 03:23:56 +0000

Beautiful writing, singing and arranging. She's been unstoppable.