By Imogen Heap, 2006

Charismatic and compelling singer-songwriter Imogen Heap--recently nominated for two Grammy awards--has gained the ear of America in recent years with her electro/alt songs on cult-fave movies and television shows as well as her 2005 sophomore album Speak for Yourself. Yet i Megaphone, her 1998 debut, has been out of print in the U.S. for seven years. Now, that album has received a much-deserved reissue.

i Megaphone revisits the songs that marked Heap as the next great iconoclastic female artist, a lineage that includes Patti Smith, Kate Bush, Annie Lennox, Bjork, and Liz Phair. After her live debut performing between sets by the Who and Eric Clapton at the 1996 Prince's Trust Concert in London's Hyde Park, the classically trained Heap, from rural Essex, England, signed to Almo Sounds when she was just 17 years old. i Megaphone (an anagram for "Imogen Heap"), produced by David Kahne, Dave Stewart (of the Eurythmics), and Guy Sigsworth, and featuring the engaging singles "Come Here Boy," "Shine," and "Getting Scared," earned wide critical acclaim.

Unfortunately, Almo Sounds, formed by A&M founders Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss, was winding down and Heap soon found herself adrift. In 2002, she and Sigsworth released a duo album, Details, under the moniker Frou Frou and it too was critically acclaimed. The following year they covered the Bonnie Tyler classic "Holding Out for a Hero" for the Shrek 2 soundtrack.

Though by then defunct, Frou Frou enjoyed an unexpected resurgence in popularity in 2004 when "Let Go" was featured in Garden State. Heap's second solo album, Speak for Yourself, emerged the following year. Its "Hide and Seek" was heard in the powerful closing scenes of the Season Two finale of The O.C. and sparked a frenzy.

The series' third season ended with her haunting rendition of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." "Hide and Seek" was also featured in the movie The Last Kiss, the reality series So You Think You Can Dance, and as the ending song in the premiere episode of this year's new drama Smith. In addition, she penned "Can't Take It In" for The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. But it is because of i Megaphone that America first heard Imogen Heap.

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