Having previously advised that “MIDI controllers can be expensive” and that using your QWERTY keyboard to record notes “works just as well,” PinkPantheress has now conceded that she really would like to own one particular wearable performance controller that definitely doesn’t come cheap.
We’re talking about the Mi.Mu gloves, the wearable musical mittens that enable you to trigger and control sounds using hand and finger gestures.
The idea for the gloves came from Imogen Heap, who began developing them with her team back in 2010. Heap, it turns out, is a big inspiration for PinkPantheress, something that she recently revealed to Derrick Gee on his YouTube channel during an interview.
Article continues belowBut Gee was way ahead of her: he already knew this and, prior to the interview, had invited Heap to send a question for PinkPantheress that he could surprise her with, and she had been happy to oblige.
“I would like to ask you a question about production,” began Heap, in a pre-recorded clip. “So, I know you produce a lot of your work, which is brilliant. And I would like to know if you've got any special tricks, basically anything insightful that I could go buy or something that you know about in one of the programs you use that I could have a play with.”
There was more, though, because Heap was also wearing a pair of the aforementioned gloves, and set PinkPantheress a challenge.
“I have just now recorded a little bit of me singing one of your songs. A little bit of one of your songs. And I have it in my gloves, and I'm going to ask you to try and figure out what it is. But I'm going to go backwards to forwards.”
All of which drew quite the reaction from PinkPantheress, who was clearly astonished to see one of her songs, which she managed to correctly identify as True Romance, being sung by one of her heroes.
“You don’t understand,” she said. “That’s going to hit me later, and it’s going to make me cry.”
And then a plea: “Those gloves are everything. I've always wanted a pair of those – I want to ask her for some.”
Well we guess she sort of has now.
PinkPantheress went on to reveal that she and Heap have been close to working together in the past, and to explain just why she was so overwhelmed at hearing Heap singing one of her songs.
“So many of my melodies I feel like are born from her. It feels like it's full circle. Like, that is a melody she would sing… I am her daughter.”
That might come as news to Heap, but we get where she’s coming from. And if Heap doesn’t come through with a pair of gloves, PinkPantheress might like to know that they’re available on the Mi.Mu website, though she’ll need to find £2,699 if she wants to buy a pair.
As for production tips, despite being named Producer of the Year at this year's Brit Awards, PinkPantheress humbly suggested that there was nothing she could teach Heap that she didn’t already know.
“As if she's asking me. She's asking me what tricks I have. I have no tricks that she doesn't know about.”
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