ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Imogen Heap - Musician
Imogen Heap's aching voice and surprising electronics infuse countless videos and iPods with bone-chilling atmospherics.

Why you should listen

Classically trained composer, multi-instrumentalist and singer Imogen Heap finds her muse in unlikely places. She's mined sonic mystery from sources ranging from cardboard tubes to cheap samplers to the data gloves--not to mention her own vocal cords.

A relentless experimenter, Heap's latest song cycle is built around some 900 fan-submitted "sound seeds," or samples of everyday sounds. The first six of these "Heapsongs" have been released via her website, and include the lovely "Propeller Seeds," inspired by a chance meeting at a past TEDGlobal. During 2012's TEDGlobal she recorded a song in various locations around Edinburgh, "anywhere that has a piano and they let me turn up with a microphone." She has also composed the orchestral score for the crowdsourced nature film "Love the Earth."

Heap's last album Ellipse earned her a Grammy and Ivor Novello award. This summer marks the release of Sparks, her fifth and most ambitious album to date. Sparks' songs have taken Imogen all over the world from her North East London home studio to the Himalayas via China. This year Imogen is the guest artist-curator for the iconic London Roundhouse venue’s new music festival, Reverb. The eagerly awaited Sparks world tour will begin at Reverb in August 2014. Meanwhile, Imogen will be celebrating her tenth TED anniversary this year.

More profile about the speaker
Imogen Heap | Speaker | TED.com
TEDGlobal 2009

Imogen Heap: "Wait It Out"

Filmed:
1,084,087 views

Imogen Heap plays a powerful stripped-down version of "Wait It Out," from her new record, Ellipse.
- Musician
Imogen Heap's aching voice and surprising electronics infuse countless videos and iPods with bone-chilling atmospherics. Full bio

Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.

00:18
♫ Where do we go from here? ♫
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♫ How do we carry on? ♫
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♫ I can't get beyond the questions ♫
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00:32
♫ Clambering for the scraps ♫
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00:34
♫ in the shatter of us, collapsed ♫
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00:38
♫ It cuts me with every could have been ♫
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00:46
♫ Pain on pain on play, repeating ♫
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00:50
♫ With the backup, makeshift life in waiting ♫
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01:00
♫ Everybody says ♫
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01:06
♫ time heals everything ♫
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01:12
♫ What of the wretched hollow? ♫
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01:18
♫ The endless in between? ♫
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01:21
♫ Are we just going to wait it out? ♫
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01:24
♫ There is nothing to see here now ♫
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01:27
♫ Turning the sign around ♫
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01:30
♫ We're closed to the Earth 'til further notice ♫
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♫ A crumbling cliche case ♫
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01:40
♫ crumpled and puffy faced ♫
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01:43
♫ caught dead in the stare of a thousand miles ♫
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01:51
♫ All I want, only one street level miracle ♫
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01:57
♫ I'll be an out and out born again ♫
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01:59
♫ from none more cynical ♫
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02:02
♫ Everybody says ♫
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02:08
♫ that time heals everything ♫
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02:14
♫ But what of the wretched hollow? ♫
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02:20
♫ The endless in between? ♫
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02:23
♫ Are we just going to wait it out? ♫
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02:27
♫ And sit here cold? ♫
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02:30
♫ We will be long gone by then ♫
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02:33
♫ In lackluster ♫
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02:35
♫ In dust we lay around old magazines ♫
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02:39
♫ Fluorescent lighting sets the scene ♫
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02:42
♫ for all we could and should be being ♫
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♫ in the one life that we've got ♫
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02:53
♫ Everybody says ♫
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03:00
♫ time heals everything ♫
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03:06
♫ And what of the wretched hollow? ♫
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03:12
♫ The endless in between? ♫
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03:15
♫ Are we just going to wait it out? ♫
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03:22
♫ Just going to sweat it out? ♫
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03:28
♫ Just going to sweat it out? ♫
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03:36
♫ Wait it out ♫
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03:45
(Applause)
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ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Imogen Heap - Musician
Imogen Heap's aching voice and surprising electronics infuse countless videos and iPods with bone-chilling atmospherics.

Why you should listen

Classically trained composer, multi-instrumentalist and singer Imogen Heap finds her muse in unlikely places. She's mined sonic mystery from sources ranging from cardboard tubes to cheap samplers to the data gloves--not to mention her own vocal cords.

A relentless experimenter, Heap's latest song cycle is built around some 900 fan-submitted "sound seeds," or samples of everyday sounds. The first six of these "Heapsongs" have been released via her website, and include the lovely "Propeller Seeds," inspired by a chance meeting at a past TEDGlobal. During 2012's TEDGlobal she recorded a song in various locations around Edinburgh, "anywhere that has a piano and they let me turn up with a microphone." She has also composed the orchestral score for the crowdsourced nature film "Love the Earth."

Heap's last album Ellipse earned her a Grammy and Ivor Novello award. This summer marks the release of Sparks, her fifth and most ambitious album to date. Sparks' songs have taken Imogen all over the world from her North East London home studio to the Himalayas via China. This year Imogen is the guest artist-curator for the iconic London Roundhouse venue’s new music festival, Reverb. The eagerly awaited Sparks world tour will begin at Reverb in August 2014. Meanwhile, Imogen will be celebrating her tenth TED anniversary this year.

More profile about the speaker
Imogen Heap | Speaker | TED.com