Imogen Heap's songs have – via being used in big US drama series such as The OC and Heroes – delivered her a sizeable cult following around the world. She remains, however, a restlessly innovative artist at heart, more informed by performance art than by pop music.
It makes her an ideal choice to curate Reverb, the Roundhouse's festival of experimental music, which features orchestral recitals, DJ sets, workshops and interactive displays. Tonight's showcase of electro-acoustic "one-man-bands" explores the festival's key theme: innovative approaches to music technology. Most electronic music is made on a sequencer, a device that arranges synth and drum sounds as if on graph paper. Tonight's musicians, however, create their one-man-band performances by using "loopers", digital effects units that can sample a musical phrase in real time, repeat it on a loop and layer other sounds over the top.
Using such devices, DJ Tim Exile takes random noises (such as stray mumbles or the sound of a CD dropping to the floor) and turns them into pulsating rave beats. Norwegian trumpeter Arve Henriksen makes whispery ambient music by playing his trumpet in the style of a Japanese shakuhachi flute, overlaying it with haunted electronic textures. Norway's Maja Solveig Kjelstrup Ratkje assembles a barrage of squelches, drones and African thumb pianos that sound like the loading tape for a ZX81 and then sings over the top – sometimes babbling, sometimes wailing soulfully. Finland's Pekka Kuusisto is an acclaimed classical violinist, but here he loops himself playing his violin like a banjo, singing ambient versions of Finnish folk songs to create, as he says, "music for people who cry when they masturbate".
A heavily pregnant Imogen Heap loops herself singing and playing a grand piano, but also unveils the Mi.Mu gloves that she helped create, which enable her to trigger various sounds and effects with gestures and hand movements. As a Dragon's Den-style business proposition, they're probably doomed, but they do succeed in turning her into synth-pop cyborg, a mix of Laurie Anderson-style performance artist and a human Theremin. An intriguing artist.
