Background
Heidi grew up listening to the metallic sounds of her dad repairing cars and her mother playing the organization
Heidi grew up listening to the metallic sounds of her dad repairing cars and her mother playing the organization
As a teenager, Heidi moved to Barcelona and started to experiment with sound and acoustics. After playing her first concert, Mortenson was appointed Resident Artist 2003 at the annual experimental LEM Festival in Barcelona. Hereafter she went on a European tour with visual artist SOLU, with whom she performed the Opening Acting of Transmediale Festival 2004 in Berlin.
That same year Heidi moved to Berlin, where she started working on her debut album.
Mortenson"s style is not easy to categorize, as her songs are unbound to any specific genre. The cassette tape release Circular Tape, was made from using a microphone and 7 effect pedals.
The sound source being Heidi"s voice. The songs are recorded using instant composing style.
Meaning onto one track, without arrangement or preparation.
Heidi has also performed a great deal live as a solo act, building up songs by sampling her voice through efx pedals and singing. The Danish music magazine Musiktidsskriftet Geiger selected her album "Don"t Lonely Maine", as one of the 100 Best Albums of 2007. The song Hurt Machine from Don"t Lonely Maine is featured on the popular American / Canadian television series The L Word in season 6.07.
Mortenson gained attention from her concert at the Satellite Pour l’Observation de la Terre Festival 2008, receiving good reviews by the press
The music magazine Gaffa credited her 5 stars, Musiktidsskriftet Geiger wrote "overall probably the best concert of this year"s Satellite Pour l’Observation de la Terre festival and musically absolutely the bravest", the United Kingdom Telegraph stated “The girl who totally blew my mind was Heidi Mortenson (…) She conjures up weirdly colourful, avant-garde dance tracks out of nothing (…) Fantastically entertaining and completely original, if Madonna really wants to start pushing popular music into new areas she should forget working with established American production talents like Timbaland and give this mad Dane a call." In 2010 Heidi took part in Laurie Anderson"s remix contest and got an honourable mention and streaming of the remix on Anderson"s website. In 2012 Mortenson composed the original soundtrack for the theater piece Luft Havn, which premièred in Denmark at the new cultural center Godsbanen.
Later that year, she was nominated a Gaffa Award for Best Danish Artist 2012 for her Mørk European Parliament. In the start of her career, Heidi used only her second name Mortenson and (reversed) Nosnetrom to mask her gender. Mortenson speaks several languages: she is fluent in English, Spanish and Danish, and also speaks German and some Norwegian and Swedish.