Imogen Heap - Frou Frou - Interview - 2002

Frou Frou is the name of the new Imogen Heap/Guy Sigsworth project. An aural exploration of beats, songs and noises straight from the musical melting pot. 

Imogen Heap, who’s debut album was released not long after she left 6th form college, has teamed up with the legendary musician/producer Guy Sigsworth, who’s repertoire includes work with Madonna, Bjork and Seal, to create some of the most beautiful electro-acoustic music you’re likely to hear.

The update spent two joyous hours speaking to the two wonderfully friendly, honest and genuinely interesting halves of Frou Frou:

Guy: “My parents were very into classical music, so I wasn’t exposed to much else. Then I went to school and started to learn a bit more about pop music. When I left school I was quite lucky because I was living with my brother in his flat in the Portobello area. I was listening to a lot of the pirate stations, thinking ‘I could do that’. There was this guy called ‘Seal’ who was living in a squat, he had an amazing voice so we made a record, ‘Crazy’, which became huge. From then on it’s just been a wonderful set of coincidences that put me in contact with the right people. Bomb the Bass lived down the road from me, so we worked together. Everything I worked on came out of friendships really.” 

Imogen: “I was at a 6th form college studying music and sound technology. I was less into composition, and more into making noises. The whole CAREER thing sort of happened by accident: we used to make a CD to show everything we’d done on the course, and one of my songs got noticed. I went into the studio and did a demo, ‘Come Here Boy’ - I was still only 16 or 17. I went into the studio with Nik Kershaw. I still didn’t really know what was happening when got into the studio, so I exploited my time and learned all about it.  Then I suddenly had a record on my hands; I guess it was at this point that I thought, ‘this is what I’m going to be doing’.”

Guy: “I heard her stuff and thought her voice was fantastic, she had a lot of soul. We met and did a few demo tracks. 

Imogen: “Guy produced ‘Getting Scared’ on my album, and I sang on his album. We went into the studio four years ago with the idea of doing a proper collaboration. We approached record companies and got some money together to go into the studio for a year. It was a long time but it’s been wicked.”

Guy: “We really bonded over music: Nine Inch Nails to Herbie Hancock. We just fell in love with what each other was doing, and what we were doing. She’s a very good musician. There aren’t set roles in the creative process, we both do everything in the music. There’s too much dance music that has a girl warbling over the top of a pre-made backing track.”

A relatively obscure Miles Davis said that he was forever changed after working with Carlos Santana. It makes you wonder what you would take away from working with a woman as formidable as Madonna, or as eccentric as Bjork.

Guy: “I’ve learned from everybody that I’ve worked with. I want to be a 100 and still learning. I don’t think you an work with someone and not learn from them.”

And what about not seeing eye to eye on a song? 

Guy: “I’ve been very lucky really, I haven’t had to compromise to much. If you’re producing someone else’s music you don’t mind what they want. I have to say that the tracks I did with Madonna were the most uncompromised songs.”

Guy seems to have been in everybodies studio from here to Rekjavic: Guy: “I worked with Bjork on her first two albums, ‘Debut’ and ‘Post’ as well as other songs. I think will compare Bjork to Ella Fitzgerald in years to come: she really does have a phenomenal voice. I worked very briefly with Goldie, at the beginning of ‘Saturnz Return’.

But Guy isn’t the only part of the duo that’s been working their talent on the scene: 

Imogen: “To start out with, I was scared of working with other people. I didn’t want to give stuff about me away. Through projects with people like Urban Species - weird stuff – I learned a lot about singing and about collaborating. I met up with LHB and they remixed one of our tunes, so we kept in contact. They asked me into the studio to sing on ‘Coming Up For Air’.”

The pair have also conjured up a great plan to encourage and promote young photographers: 

“we’re inviting students to send us examples of their work. The photos will all go online and will be voted for by the public, then Guy and I will pick the winner from the shortlist. The winner gets to photograph the two of us, and have their photos used.”

Producers are known for whoring themselves under different names and with different vocalists and musicians, but Guy is feeling very monogamous:

Guy: “We’re very proud of the record. We’ve committed ourselves to Frou Frou. I have the outlook that if there are two people in Patagonia that haven’t heard the record, then our work isn’t finished yet.”