Frou Frou |
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Fri. October 04.2002 5:31 PM EDT |
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Frou Frou: From Madonna to StravinskyBrit duo with French name make lush ‘tronica & talk classical gasses. by C. Bottomley |
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Frou Frou's Imogen Heap (VH1.com) |
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What do you get when you combine the guy who wrote Madonna’s “What It Feels Like For a Girl” with a Quaker-educated singer-songwriter? The answer is Frou Frou, and don’t snicker at the name, because they’re worth paying attention to. Frou
It’s become a happy partnership. Frou Frou’s debut Details is a brace of smart tunes the Material Girl would give up a pointed brassiere to get her hands on. Instead, center stage is taken by Heap’s soaring vocals, yodeling like the Cocteau Twins’ Liz Fraser on “Must Be Dreaming,” then wrapping the listener in a cozy hug on “Breathe In.” So don’t let the French name - apparently onomatopoeia for the sound of swishing skirts - fool you. These are no Gauloise-sucking sophisticates. They’re two coffee-quaffing Brits brimming over with enthusiasm about music, Star Trek, Frank Sinatra, Brian Eno, Paul Simon and swimming in giant goldfish bowls - a frightening combination, as you’ll soon discover. VH1: Imogen, how does a Quaker boarding school differ from the classic English boarding school? Imogen Heap: The only thing I learned about Quakerism is that every Sunday at six o’clock you have to be quiet for half-an-hour and every morning before school starts, you have to be quiet for four minutes. It’s very difficult, because when you’re not supposed to talk, you can’t help laughing. They had a music room with 24 pianos, which was great. Nobody seemed to play the piano apart from me, so I had them all to myself. It was good fun. VH1: How did you two first meet? Sisgworth: I heard Immy’s demo tape and thought she had this amazing voice. We both liked wide melodies with big structures in them. Four years ago we wrote a song called “Flicks” and that set the tone for Frou Frou. Whenever there was free time, we’d do another song, until there was a body of work that was screaming for its own unique moniker! VH1: What do you have in common outside of the actual music? Heap: We like sci-fi, talking about planets and space, and we both drink coffee! VH1: Why sci-fi? Sigsworth: I like the “what if?” thing and following an idea through to an odd conclusion. I remember an episode of Star Trek about people whose lives were so accelerated ordinary people couldn’t see them. They were living their entire life in nanoseconds! That’s the sci-fi I like, more than space operas with empires and things. VH1: You both grew up with classical music. Who were your favorite composers before rock hit you? Sigsworth: Igor Stravinsky! The first time I ever heard The Rite of Spring, I was frightened of it. Then I began to get pleasure out of the fact that it was frightening me. I was like, “He’s going to do another loud bit soon, isn’t he?” It was a nervous energy. I love that weird cubist angularity of his music - it’s so modern. Heap: Erik Satie. His melodies are so beautiful and memorable. So as a kid it’s easy to play. VH1: Who was the first singer who made you realize that singing pop music was an art in itself? Sigsworth: Frank Sinatra isn’t so interesting as a melodic acrobat, but as someone who performs a lyric, he’s the greatest. When I listen to his Capital records, I go, “Wow!” The little inflections, the slight delay on a word, knock me out. He can wring every nuance out of a word that he’s been given. Liz Fraser still completely bowls me over. When I listened to the Cocteau Twins, you’d hear an intro and think, “Okay, what’s she going to do?” She would come in with the last thing you’d ever expect to accompany what you just heard. Heap: I’ve always been more into the production and musical side of things. It was only when I started to be intrigued by my own voice and what I can do with it that I looked at what other people did. I really love Kate Bush and Mike Doughty, the guy from Soul Coughing. VH1: In your solo songs, Imogen, you sang lines like "If I were your dog, I'd take a sh*t on you." Frou Frou write songs like “It’s Good To Be in Love.” Have you mellowed? Heap: [Laughs.] Well, some of those songs I wrote when I was quite young! I grew up a little. They’re fun because they remind me of what I was like when I was 17. You’re going through periods and learning about boys and life. It all gets a bit confusing. Gradually you learn that maybe you don’t want to talk about wanting to sh*t on somebody! Working with another lyricist like Guy makes you think about if you believe what you’re saying. You can get away with a lot more writing alone. You can justify being flowery and not making a lot of sense by saying, “Well, it makes sense to me.” VH1: How are you getting those feelings of heartbreak across with computers? Sigsworth: People think electronic music is cold, Germanic and unfeeling, and that somebody strumming along on an acoustic guitar is heartfelt. That’s rubbish. You can create heartbreaking songs on a laptop, and there’s plenty of music written on an acoustic guitar with no feeling in it at all. Kraftwerk can be seen as the most unemotional band of all time, but I find far more emotion in “Computer Love” than anything Celine Dion has ever recorded. “Neon Lights” is so magical and mysterious. They portray themselves in a very alienated way, but if you listen to the music, there’s plenty of heart in Kraftwerk. VH1: Is there a sonic architect who continues to push the envelope for you? Sigsworth: Brian Eno just seems to open people’s minds to other ways of making music. We’ve got a box of his Oblique Strategies cards in the studio. When you’re stuck and are like, “Oh no, I don’t like this bass sound!” you pick up a card and it will say, “Go home” or something. They’re fantastic. I can’t imagine U2 without Eno. He took them beyond being a rock band into something far more exciting and unusual. VH1: On “Dumbing Down of Love” you sing, “Music is worthless unless it can make a complete stranger break down and cry.” What music makes you get emotional? Sigsworth: I’ve just discovered this Finnish composer called Einojuhani Rautavaara. He’s got this symphony that’s all about angels - Symphony No. 7, Angel of Light. I put it on in the car, and I had to stop and pull over, because I would have crashed if I kept listening to it. It’s an absolutely beautiful thing. There have been some Nina Simone songs like “Don’t Explain” that have done that to me, too. Heap: Recently I was clearing out a room at my dad’s house, going through loads of old CDs, and I found Arvo Part’s Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten. It’s so gorgeous. I love listening to it on the subway. There’s this fast, busy life going by and the music is these gorgeous soaring strings. VH1: The lyrics for “Flicks” and “Must Be Dreaming” are very surreal. Do those images just pop into your head or do you work very intently on creating them? Heap: “Flicks” just flew really easily. I like the idea of taking moments of your life that are really important to you and creating a film out of them, like 15 memories you just can’t live without. It’s weird, because you can start off with an idea and be really excited about writing the song. Then, three months later, when you finally get around to writing a song - or finishing it - it’s totally different! Sigsworth: One of my favorite songs is Paul Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al,” where he starts like he’s telling you a story - “A man walks down the street …” and then before you know it, the story has gone off to Neptune. You don’t know at what point it went from being conventional storytelling into complete sci-fi. If you can draw people in, set up something that they believe is real, and then subvert it, that’s the best. VH1: Speaking of Neptune, how did Imogen end up in a giant goldfish bowl in the “Must Be Dreaming” video? Heap: That was a strange couple of days. They got me doing some stuff I never thought I would be able to do. The first day they had me blindfolded with a big wad of hair around my face. I couldn’t see a damn thing for three hours and I was led around like a mummy. Then they put me on this turntable with these huge heels and I was trying to stand still, sing and do lots of hand movements - so that was fun! Then they put me in this tank of water! Sigsworth: The things you do for your art, Immy! |
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