My gods include: Chopin, Ravel, Wim Mertens, Yann Tiersen and Michael Nyman.

Self-produced British composer and recording artist for 25 years, Imogen Heap has released five solo albums, another as one half of Frou Frou and collaborated with countless and varied artists including Taylor Swift, Nitin Sawhney, Deadmau5, Eric Whitacre, Jeff Beck and Jon Hopkins. Her compositions and songs pop up in blockbuster and indie films as well as countless TV shows, are featured in underground rap and dance music and covered by the likes of Ariana Grande. As composer and arranger for one of the biggest hits in theatrical history, Harry Potter and The Cursed Child, Imogen won the Drama Desk Outstanding Music in a Play award. As a sought-after speaker and performer, Heap hosted 2020’s Grammys Premiere Ceremony. Heap’s collaborative and multi-dimensional workflow attracts companies for commissioned works, leading to songs such as Tiny Human, the first song to distribute payments via a Smart Contract, and The Happy Song, a highly successful song for children in their early-years. Heap, recognised as an artist's artist, has won two Grammys and an Ivor Novello award. In recognition of her pioneering work at the intersection of music and tech, Heap has a hat trick of three honorary doctorates for the gestural music-ware 'MI.MU gloves' system and recently for ’The Creative Passport’, an integrated digital ID solution, empowering music makers to be the change toward a fair and flourishing music ecosystem. Between projects a constant for the past year is every Thursday afternoon, Imogen Q&A chats with her fans via The Listening Chair with those who subscribe to Imogenheap.app to collaborate together on Augmented Imogen, Imogen's in dev AI.

ANIMUSIC is a very small computer animation production company I started in the mid-90's. We produce music-driven computer animation (on DVDs and Blu-ray, etc.).

Besides directing animation production, I also produce music -- which is often (but not always!) intended to be animated.

These tunes here are early mixes from The Sound of 12, a music CD I put together mostly earlier in 2012. It was the first time I really just sat down to focus on producing music, for some deep personal reasons as well as the enjoyment of the process. Rather than being concerned about things like: Would a given piece would work well in an animation context? was it in this style or that style? Did it sound decades out of date? Would people like it?... Instead I would take to heart what I've been kindly reminded of on numerous occasions: "Remember, Wayne -- this is supposed to be fun". 

So The Sound of 12 is the result. My creative juices got flowing again, and this cathartic endeavor helped me tremendously in getting re-aligned with the artistic side of things -- breaking free of a multi-year geak-out session that embodied the development of our in-house production system, ANIMUSIC|studio.

The Sound of 12 has been metaphorically referred to as "the Soul of ANIMUSIC 3". But, what does that mean? Is it the Soundtrack of ANIMUSIC 3? Nope (at least not by original intent) -- that music will very much be shaped by the animated virtual instruments that play it -- a process that's hard to articulate, as I'm not sure I understand it myself. But it's very different from just freely working on music with no thought of robots, lasers, or bouncing balls, but instead simply focussing on the fun of making stuff come out of the speakers. 

So I thought I'd share some of it with you, hoping you might enjoyed it too. But just like the Soundtrack CD's from ANIMUSIC 1 and 2 had some extras tracks that were never animated (so far anyway), The Sound of 12 is comprised of 12 tracks that may or may not even be animated. It gets weirder. I might even grab arbitrary parts from different pieces and use them in animations by joined them together with some different musical glue. 

Anyway, when we decided to release the piece (Glarpedge) that was most experimental of all of them (given that the rhythm track was largely assembled from sound effects -- pinball machines, drills, car transmission sounds, etc), with little to no explanation of context, that was… a little risky, perhaps.

The reactions? Delightful. You know what I hear in all the feedback -- passion...which is something very important to me. Beats indifference any day of the week. Thank you for taking the time to listen and voice your thoughts!

And for reminding me that the internet is a scarey place. I'm going back to my cave. ;-)

Wayne Lytle (Aug 2012)

Makers of the hit fantasy MMO Guild Wars 2.

Download and play today! 
www.guildwars2.com

musicmaker / filmmaker. Pacific Northwest.

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