Back so soon!?

Why yes, this was always intended to be a secret two-parter all along. You see, being the kind of monetarily irresponsible sort that capitalist industries thrive on, I fell rather easily into the trap of spending too much time deciding which Goldfrapp album to purchase on vinyl first once I had the means to do so. Do I honour my wayward journey through higher learning via their second album of electrified erotica or do I return to the wellsprings and rediscover their swoonsome wares from the very beginning, where they united the painterly pastoral with the modern baroque with a flair subtler than its follow-up but no less breathtaking, perhaps even more so? In the end, I had to shell out for both of them, as however different they appear to be from one another on surface level terms of genre and delivery, there is a complimentary air between these two albums beyond their shared parentage, a yin-yang style connection that helps crystallise the era before their progenitors’ ascent to platinum-selling success with album three, Supernature.

I only began this specific writing endeavour with Black Cherry because it was my first real dalliance with Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory’s work though, despite seeing this first effort on many a CD rack in London record shops amidst various trips trying to find as many Björk CD singles as I could get my hands on in my pre-uni days. Missing this slice of gauche gorgeousness the first time around is one of the bigger oversights in my early formative listening, and so to remedy that, here are some more nice words about the fabled electronic music duo pertaining to their first long player, which incidentally was due a twentieth anniversary celebratory tour last year but the pandemic really did ruin everything really, so there we are.

And for those paying attention, the landlord said no to the pole; which, fair, but still… 🙁

VINYLLY

#6: Felt Mountain by Goldfrapp (2000, Mute Records/Stumm188X)

Spotify / Apple

Before uniting to serenade the world with their idiosyncratic brand of disconcerting loveliness, Goldfrapp and Gregory were each building respectable repertoires within the music world regardless. Alison was cultivating a career in fine art and performance before recording vocals on projects for the likes of Orbital and Tricky, whilst Will had already established his musical credence playing keyboards on tour for the likes of Peter Gabriel and Tears For Fears among others, as well as contributing scoring duties on independent films and TV shows. After hearing a demo of Alison singing an early version of what would become “Human” on Felt, a friendship was forged via a shared love of musical tastes and nuances which eventually gave birth to their first collaboration, the menacingly serene audio cradle that is “Lovely Head”.

The rest of the album’s creation would take quite a while longer to reach full gestation though, not least because it took quite a while for Goldfrapp and Gregory to commit to officially forming a duo in the first place. Thereafter, recording took place for a further six months spent mostly in a studio situated in the Wiltshire countryside, a process that would turn from idyllic to arduous due to the enforced social isolation as well as having to contend with vermin constantly invading their lodgings. Knowing this only imbues Felt’s specific air of beatific portent with even more sublimity though, the sub-par conditions no doubt allowing Alison and Will to tap into both the beauty and the terror of their work’s subject matter more acutely than perhaps more acclimatising surroundings would have afforded them. Each of the songs here are burdened with the emotional perspective of an unreliable narrator either lamenting after their unrequited stirrings from afar or internally becoming increasingly more paranoid and forlorn from the lack of human contact, as seemingly lost and isolated mentally as they are physically. Which may not necessarily make for a happy or calming listen for most people, but certainly an engrossing one.

The aforementioned “Lovely Head” kicks things off fittingly with a warped klaxon sounding a trippy alarm only to give way just as instantly as it arrived to a hauntingly teasing whistle, suggesting an idyllic pastoral setting whose air is nonetheless thick with tension and unease. Alison’s vocals intone a desperate longing tempered with whispered restraint, barely registering half-formed observations of her body reacting to an object of torrid infatuation until the clouds hanging above the song burst via her electronically-manipulated operatic vocalisations. She is matched by the arrangement underneath too, Gregory and herself utilising organs, harpsichords and strings to give the piece a cinematic feel that slots neatly somewhere between the orchestral grandeur of Ennio Morricone and darker trip hop elements of Massive Attack.

(Incidentally, if you look at the liner notes for the album, Alison writes a personal thank you to “Ennio”, whilst Will gives a shout out to film director and frequent Morricone collabrator Sergio Leone, which is just all kinds of appropriate and nice.)

The rest of the album follows the premier track’s muse just as closely, forging a sense of claustrophobia at times via the amount of danger beneath the seemingly placid surfaces of the duo’s soundscapes, and though the other singles may have lacked the element of surprise that afforded “Head” they are no less sterling in their seductive wares. The version of “Human” that Goldfrapp serve up here is a fine piece of postmodern salsa-pop positively screaming for a particularly angular piece of tango-inspired choreography, whilst “Pilots On A Star” coasts on the kind of sinister sultriness that suggests a theme song for a James Bond movie where the lead villain is the protagonist rather than the iconic spy

(Sidebar: One of the bigger question marks hanging over pop during the 2000s was certainly why Goldfrapp were never selected to write and perform a Bond theme, right?)

For many fans though, “Utopia” is the favourite to be found here, featuring Alison at her most backhandedly coquettish vocally before breaking out into her almost mythic soprano as she and Gregory create a sonic vista filled with playful sensuality, coltish humour and all manner of darker implications rustling underneath the track’s surface, playing like an extended promo spot for the village featured in The Prisoner. It’s not just the singles that offer up the charms so readily though; “Paper Bag” begins with Alison’s most direct line of lusty inquiry on the album and only becomes more disturbingly sad and desolate thereafter to arresting effect, whilst the mostly instrumental title track finds the singer inhabiting a unique space between operatic melisma and full-on yodelling as they stalk through a particularly wintry arrangement, bringing to mind a Christmas tableaux featuring the cast of puppets from Shockheaded Peter.

It is this unique synthesis between psychedelic folktronica versus theatrical pop via lo-fi electronic ambience that set Goldfrapp apart from their peers in the early going and most likely the reason why it was quite a hard sell back to the public on initial release. Too baroque and austere to fully engage with the contemporary alt-pop cool kids whilst also being more ribald and sensual than most adult contemporary acts at the time, their emotionally-fraught-yet-demurely-poised sound was one that bestowed rewards onto listeners who appreciated a more literate approach to their classic pop and cinema, harkening back as much to the likes of Serge Gainsbourg as they were Portishead with their output, to the point where comparisons to the latter may even have affected many first impressions of Goldfrapp’s sound (certainly according to the NME anyway). It did however manage to score the duo their first (and so far only, bemusingly) Mercury Prize nomination, which along with their well-received live performances may have granted them enough goodwill sentiment in the industry to keep their particular “Train” moving, however disparate and versatile the terrain that lay ahead may often turn out. To sum up, whilst I definitely cannot say that I arrived at the ground floor for this band, I am still enamoured with their first long form release decades later, what with it being the truly timeless dark ambient pop masterpiece that it is. From the bottom of my heart, thank you Goldfrapp… here’s to next time when it’ll be so “Lovely 2 C U” again!

What’s your favourite track on Felt Mountain? Did you annoy your friends by repeating Alison’s alien-like warble at the beginning of the title track for a while? Please leave a comment below and share this article of it so moves you.

xxxo