Born in 1980 in Hackney, London, Summers moved with her family to the seaside town of Aldeburgh, Suffolk, where her father ran a bookstore. In her teens, she became interested in music, especially hip-hop. After high school, she moved back to London and earned a fine arts degree from Central Saint Martins. She also began experimenting with DJing, all the while working with Dan Greenpeace on his XFM London radio show. Summers eventually set up a recording studio in a former London factory where she began producing tracks with local hip-hop artists. It was during this period that she met singer Florence Welch and the two began writing songs together. Following a brief time working under the name Florence Robot/Isa Machine, they formed the group Florence + the Machine, with Summers playing keyboards and collaborating on songs with Welch. She contributed songs and performed on their first three U.K. chart-topping albums, including 2009's Brit Award-winning Lungs, 2011's Grammy-nominated Ceremonials, and 2015's How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful, the latter of which also hit number one on the Billboard 200.
Away from Welch, Summers has continued her work with other artists, writing, producing, and remixing tracks for performers like Beyoncé, Iggy Azalea, Katharine McPhee, Rita Ora, Chloe x Halle, the Game, and others. She has also moved into soundtrack work, writing the theme to the 2017 Sky Atlantic series Riviera and collaborating with Mark Isham on the Emmy-nominated score for the 2020 Hulu drama Little Fires Everywhere. In 2021, she scored the Rose Byrne-starring Apple TV+ series Physical. ~ Matt Collar, Rovi