Experimental Sound. FKA Hypercube Records

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.

Sometimes, Mitski feels life would be easier without hope, or a soul, or love. But when she closes her eyes and thinks about what’s truly hers, what can’t be repossessed or demolished, she sees love. “The best thing I ever did in my life was to love people,” she says. “I wish I could leave behind all the love I have after I die, so I can shine all this goodness, all this good love that I’ve created onto other people.” She hopes her newest album, The Land Is Inhospitable and So Are We, will shine love long after she’s gone. That’s precisely how it feels: like a love that’s haunting the land.

“This is my most American album,” she says. The music feels like a profound act of witnessing this country, in all of its private sorrows and painful contradictions. Sonically Mitski’s most epic and wise album, the songs introduce wounds and then actively heal them. Here, love is time-traveling to bless our tender days, like light from a distant star.

It's full of the ache of the grown-up, seemingly mundane heartbreaks and joys that are often unsung but feel enormous. It’s a tiny epic. From the bottom of a glass, to a driveway slushy with memory and snow, to a freight train barreling through the Midwest, and all the way to the moon, it feels like everything and everyone is crying out in pain, arching towards love. Love is that inhospitable land, beckoning and then rejecting us. To love this place, this earth, this America, this body takes work. It might be impossible. The best things are.

GemTalk is a Steven Universe fan-based podcast dedicated to reviewing, analyzing, and appreciating the animated series created by Rebecca Sugar.

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