Back in June I was scrolling through the top 100 songs on iTunes Music Store and stumbled across a tune called Hide and Seek by someone named Imogen Heap. Never heard of her (if only I watched The O.C.)… oh but what a great voice. Awesome song. $0.99 and many listens later I was trying to find out more about Ms. Heap. What I found was that her new CD, Speak For Yourself, was going to be out “real soon now”.

For a while, I regularly checked iTMS anxiously awaiting a CD full of tracks like Hide and Seek. As summer came and went I pretty much gave up on Imogen. She is after all doing this all independently (she had to mortgage her flat in London to finance everything I understand). Maybe she’s having to burn CD’s by hand I dunno.

This morning Hide and Seek happened to start playing in iTunes and I figured I’d see if that CD ever got released. Well, it did on Tuesday. And it was worth the wait. I’m not real good at reviewing, so just pretend I wrote this:

The U.S. debut solo album by Frou Frou vocalist Imogen Heap is a captivating record that fuses innovative electronic soundscapes with a strong female voice. If “Goodnight and Go” — a lilting, pulsating, and hit-ready concoction — and the alluring, synthesized pop of “Hide and Seek” are the most direct, experimental numbers like the ethereal “Have You Got It in You?” plus the rhythm-fueled “Headlock” and “Loose Ends” suggest Heap has written and produced the finest electro/alt CD of 2005. By the time the eclectic, innovative “Closing In” arrives late in the cycle of Speak for Yourself, there’s little denying it.