Grammy winner Imogen Heap has announced plans to release a new song on March 28, 2011, from her upcoming album. The catch? The song hasn’t been written yet.
Imogen is inviting her fans to act as her “virtual muse” by submitting words, sounds or music to influence her creative process.
She plans to release tracks from the album as they are written (one every three months) and keep them relevant to the time they are created. In about three years, once enough songs are completed, she will release a physical/digital album.
“There’s so much going on in my life with touring, talks and tech that the choice to do this was both a temporal necessity coupled with my passion for collaborative, spontaneous and creative projects. I also love the idea that the seeds of the song begins with the fans making a full circle when it’s experienced as a finished piece,” she says of the process.
In addition, Imogen is asking fans to upload images and video to feature in accompanying the release “because there are already many visual artists looking to add to the creative pot in friendly circles, why source further?”.
The timeline for the as-of-yet untitled ‘#HeapSong1′ is as follows;
March 14: The ‘recording’ process will begin with Imogen’s fans uploading sound ‘seeds’ for the song (a cat’s meow, rustling leaves, banging on pots and pans) from all over the world via Soundcloud to her #heapsong1 microsite. Imogen will be online chatting about and choosing those sounds her instincts draw her to.
March 15: People can submit words to a ‘wordcloud’ where more popular words visually grow in size. Imogen will be watching and writing at home being inspired by these ‘buzz’ words with an aim to encapsulate that day in time, lyrically.
March 16: A space for people to upload their own photographs/ drawings/ stencils etc. they feel connect to the past two inspirational ‘seed’ day’s themes in some way. The favorite/s will be incorporated into the 3DiCD (a virtual 3D CD) digital artwork.
March 17: Thursday is for moving image (animation/film etc). These will be the core of the video for the song. Again, urging people to choose clips they feel flow with the direction of the song.
March 18: Imogen will reveal the middle section of the song only… here she will encourage people to record a ‘solo’ (beatbox, cello, vocal, spoons, you name it) via Soundcloud over this section.
March 19: Imogen will discuss and choose one or some of these solos which will be added into the mix.
March 21: The song will be written and completed by the morning of the March 21st, just in time to make the video which will be filmed, edited and ready for release on March 28th.
March 26: During this period Imogen will be inviting/challenging fans to draw inspiration from those same initial seeds and finish a piece of work of their own, whether that might be poetry, music or a video blog response.
March 28: Taking things to the extreme, Imogen will reveal the first listen of the song publicly on her website on March 28th in parallel with a live remix by Tim Exile who will also be hearing it for the first time.
Imogen will host a release party on the night of March 28 for the fans involved in the final recording and visual aspects.
She will be blogging about the entire process at imogenheap.com.
Watch Imogen Heap “Hide and Seek” video below.