Grammy winner and music tech pioneer Imogen Heap has announced the release of newly designed MI.MU gloves. These gloves were developed as a wearable controller for ‘gestural music performance’.
British music tech company MI.MU was founded by Grammy award-winning artist Imogen Heap in 2010 in collaboration with a team of specialist musicians, artists, scientists and technologists. MI.MU was borne out of a desire to use the complex movements of the human body to free performers from the typical musical setups of knobs, buttons and sliders.
This second iteration of the gloves is designed to appeal to a much broader audience, both in terms of user-friendliness and affordability. The new design will offer improved build quality, stronger wireless communication and more accurate gesture control.
“So happy that we are finally able to extend the incredible superhuman feeling of having music in our hands out to a wider audience,” said Heap. “We believe the gloves will enable musicians to discover new forms of expression, leading to new ideas, new performances and, ultimately, new forms of music,” added the company’s MD Adam Stark. “The gloves are the result of years of research and development into new ways to compose and perform music. We believe the gloves will enable musicians to discover new forms of expression, leading to new ideas, new performances and, ultimately, new forms of music,” adds Stark.
The first MI.MU gloves became publicly available back in 2014 with a variety of performers utilizing them, from classical pianists, to film composers, and beatboxers, as well as pop star Ariana Grande, who used the gloves on her 2015 world tour.