“Now you can have fun playing spot the difference”: Imogen Heap shares photos of her in the studio working on Taylor Swift’s new version of Clean, taken from the re-recorded 1989 album
After their original collaboration in 2014, Swift said that working with Heap was a “fangirl” moment for her as she was “all I listened to in high school”
Taylor Swift created a lot of work for herself when she decided to re-record her first six albums in order to take full ownership of her back catalogue, but she’s not the only one returning to the scenes of past musical glories, as collaborators on the records are being roped in to re-record their parts, too.
Take Imogen Heap, for example, who took to Instagram over the weekend to share photos of her in the studio working on a new cut of Clean, a song that features on ‘Taylor’s Version’ of the 1989 album, which was released on Friday 27 October.
One of the shots shows Heap playing her Array Mbira, the percussive instrument that features heavily in Clean and that Heap has been a long-term fan of. We’re assuming that this was the exact same one that was used on the original recording.
We also see Heap staring intently at a screen, presumably in the midst of producing the track in her DAW, and there’s a throwback snap of her and Swift together in 2014, when they collaborated on Clean for the first time.
Of that first session, Heap recalls: “Taylor swooped in to visit me at my home The Round House for 10 hours between 2 sold out shows at the 02 arena!
“Downstairs in The Hideaway Studio… Two ladies, in a room. We wrote and produced 90% of the track and still managed to eat lunch and dinner!
“Now you can have fun playing spot the difference.”
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In an interview with Pop Crush in 2014, Swift revealed that meeting Heap had been a real “fangirl” moment for her, as “she was all I listened to in high school.” She went on to add that “Getting to not only meet her, but work with her and watch to see what she does in the studio was really inspiring.”
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I’m the Deputy Editor of MusicRadar, having worked on the site since its launch in 2007. I previously spent eight years working on our sister magazine, Computer Music. I’ve been playing the piano, gigging in bands and failing to finish tracks at home for more than 30 years, 24 of which I’ve also spent writing about music and the ever-changing technology used to make it.
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