Imogen Heap - "Just For Now"

When I was in my early teens, whenever I heard that someone played all of the instruments on a CD, I'd always envision them in one of those ridiculous contraptions with strings all around, sitting at a drumset with a guitar in hand. It was impossible to play all of those instruments at once, I thought, and except for the occasional street performer, it is.

Obviously, I was a little confused as to the recording process.

Through the invention of looping, however, an artist can lay down a track, have it repeat, and then build upon it, and so on. Freddy Mercury did this in "the Prophet Song", for one. I can think of a number of live performances that have used this technique but none better than Imogen Heap's "Just For Now".

In this video, Imogen, who has a reasonably distinct voice, shows that her true talent lies in using that voice to create a symphony. I've never been the biggest fan of her recordings, save for "Let Go" (Garden State soundtrack, recorded as Frou Frou) and a few others. But this performance changed it all for me and demonstrates incredible talent that will hopefully lead to bigger platforms down the road.

Note: "Can you get me out of here?" at 3:20 onwards. Awesome.