Obviously Bat 1, Bat 2, Born to Run & The Rising are all up there amongst my favourites as I'm a fan of Meat and Springsteen and consider those to be their best albums. However an album I've been listening to around 50 times in full this year has been "Ellipse" by Imogen Heap. I'd say that it comes close to being my favourite album of all time. It's quite a different music style from the normal band-like rock music I usually listen to, more electronica but still blends in pop and rock cliches and as piano is her main instrument with her voice it works really well for me.
I'm extremely impressed by the fact she wrote, performed and engineered the whole thing herself in her basement studio. As well as having a great soothing voice she is very talented musically and plays lots of instruments. She has embraced the social network era and made use of Twitter for a few suggestions and feedback by her fans on her songs whilst she was still working on this.
The album, which was recorded and put together between mid 2007- mid 2009 contains some great songs and they are all very different. From the opening determined rhythmic "First Train Home", to the desperate lonely "Wait it Out", the hyper vocal only layered "Earth" (she was heavily influenced by Michael Jackson in her youth), the lovely textured "Little Bird", the rocky "Tidal", the perfected syncopated "Bad Body Double" and ending with the gorgeous "Half Life", there is so much on this record. Lots of different instrumentations, textures, amazing use of voice and all round great ideas.
She's not the type of person who simply uses a given instrument from an array of synthesizer sounds, but she develops sounds herself from anything surrounding her and processes these. The album is called "Ellipse" as the house she took over from her parents (where she grew up in) and recorded the album in is of an elliptical shape and she has used sounds from around the house on each of the songs (from water dripping to hitting drum sticks against banister rails etc). Very creative imo.
It has to been one of the most impressive if not the best albums I've ever heard.
Definitely one I'd recommend. But you have to be patient with this album as you may not "Get it" the first play around. I'm still discovering new melodies and bits of music all over the place and it's definitely one of those albums that grows on you a bit like the 4 from Meat and Springsteen I've mentioned. A true masterpiece in my opinion.
I'm seeing Imogen on 3 dates of her upcoming UK tour leg in October/November. One of these is a show at the Royal Albert Hall on November 5th where in addition to her normal 2 hour set she is also going to conduct a 30 minute orchestra piece she has written herself and will make use of fan submitted videoclips of nature on screens, titled "Project Earth" so that show will be very special I reckon. The show is being streamed/recorded live I believe.