Goldfrapp - Queen of the Woods

Take spare, spectral arrangements worthy of Portishead, season them with the ethereal, dreamlike taste of Cocteau Twins and the more sensual side of Bjork, immerse the whole thing in Morricone-esque soundscapes and jazzy atmospheres straight out of Sixties soundtracks, and you'll have the sonic essence of Goldfrapp, one of the revelations of this early stretch of the new millennium.

The band led by blonde singer, songwriter and keyboardist Alison Goldfrapp is yet another product of the fertile Bristol scene, where deejays, musicians and studio wizards built that formidable trip-hop laboratory that had already produced the likes of Portishead, Massive Attack and Tricky. And it's precisely alongside the latter that Alison's career begins, an eclectic artist who, during her years studying in the art department at Middlesex University, had already created performances and installations, combining sounds and images. While still at college, Alison contributed to Tricky's debut album, “Maxinquaye”, and accompanied him on tour. During the same period, she also took part in the making of “Snivilisation” by Orbital.

Meanwhile, the English singer began writing her own compositions, until one of her demo tapes reached Will Gregory, a composer of film scores, who was struck by her vocal and songwriting talents. Thus began a partnership between the two under the name Goldfrapp. Their first projects were a handful of compositions inspired by classical music, Sixties film scores, and French pop.

Delicate themes that, reworked with electronic drones, yielded melancholy ballads steeped in dramatic tension. A body of work that didn't escape the attentive ears of Mute Records (the label of Nick Cave and Depeche Mode), who signed them and released their debut album, Felt Mountain (2001), also made with the help of Adrian Utley of Portishead and John Parish, the producer of PJ Harvey.

The album immediately won over critics and audiences alike, helped along by the promotional push of the single “Lovely Head” (used as the soundtrack for a Bmw commercial): a noir-tinged ballad worthy of a David Lynch film score. A showcase of Alison Goldfrapp's talent, whose anguished siren's voice soars, sensual and ethereal, in a whirl of electronic keyboards and sampled whistles, delivering an extraordinary visionary effect. Alison's voice stands out for its incredible versatility, managing to combine fragility and power, range and passion.

“We recorded ‘Felt Mountain’ in a bungalow out in the middle of nowhere – Alison recalls -. It was all very gloomy, and the nights were full of strange animal noises from the woods”. A setting the Goldfrapp duo chose to reproduce on the cover, with images of a German forest. “It was meant to give an idea of where the record was conceived. I personally took care of the artwork and chose the images. We wanted to express the sense of a journey setting off through the woods”. Among the band's influences, it's not just the Bristol scene: “We're also very interested in classical music – Alison explains – especially Wagner, Strauss and Bach, and then we're big fans of artists like Ennio Morricone, Françoise Hardy, Beach Boys, Add N To X, Michel Legrand”.

The nine tracks on Felt Mountain alternate between emotion, passion and harmony, managing to blend the cinematic sounds of John Barry and Ennio Morricone with Bristol's modern pulse. From the powerful arrangements of “Human” to the melancholy streak of “Deer Stop” or the emotional pull of “Horse Tears”. But – beyond “Lovely Head” – what truly enchants is above all “Utopia”, another aching melody carried by Alison's sweet soprano through a sea of electronic effects, reverb and dissonance.

Goldfrapp's atmospheres (well conveyed live too, as attested by their experience as a support act for Nick Cave) manage to captivate through the blend of classic and modern elements, drum machines and synthetic loops paired with dramatic mellotrons, violins and tribal percussion. And live, too, Alison — who shows up in a dazzling gold outfit — proves to be a front-woman of real stature, able to hold the audience's attention with her disorienting vocalizations and mesmerizing whispers.

The stories penned under the Goldfrapp name are populated by visions of a desolate, unsettling future: mad love affairs, terrifying societies inhabited by sinister androids hidden beneath human guise, despair and redemption. As Valeria Rusconi writes on Rockol about Felt Mountain, "it's as if the pungent scent of the undergrowth unveiled itself alongside the music, with its dark humus soil, the shiny needles of conifers and their resinous bark; as if the alienated music made of perverse dreams intertwined with the sounds of a mysterious, unsettling mountain forest, where a thousand creatures move night and day". An enchanted atmosphere, in short, "as if Alison Goldfrapp, a stern dame with an absent gaze and thick blonde curls, were not human but a mythological creature, queen of the mountains and goddess of the woods. An ice queen who wanders through boundless valleys, snow-covered peaks, blinding expanses of snow, suspended in air by invisible wings; her light, melancholy voice whispering words that travel through infinite spaces, until they conquer the mind, like a siren's bewitching song". A genuine talent that could not escape the notice of such a keen observer of world rock as Peter Gabriel, who wanted Alison by his side on "Ovo".

In 2003 Goldfrapp returned with Black Cherry, veering towards a saturated, sensual electro-pop not too distant a relative of Garbage (and thus, indirectly, of Blondie). But Alison Goldfrapp's conversion from obscure vestal of the woods to languidly sexy performer only partly succeeds. And in the metamorphosis of the "Black Cherry", unfortunately, the traces of that bleak, arcane aura that had made "Felt Mountain" magical get lost. The blonde Alison remains, mind you, a top-notch singer. A crystalline soprano, capable of climbing into sumptuous siren-like vocalizations. But in the guise of the sexy enchantress of "Black Cherry" she no longer seems able to convey the same dreamlike allure that songs like "Lovely Head", "Human" and "Utopia" had given us.

The opening "Crystalline Green" still manages to hold onto that fatal pathos for a few moments, albeit locked within a solid wall of synths and robotic beats. But starting from the following "Train", the record's true face is revealed: a hyper-mechanized pop, dominated by obsessive moogs, in which Alison seems ill at ease, as if the Kate Bush of "Wuthering Heights" had been trapped inside a techno earworm by Prodigy. The title track lets a few rays of sunlight filter through the murkiness of the sound, especially thanks to Alison, whose vocalizations at times rediscover the lyricism of "Felt Mountain". The Portishead-style scratches and the dark beat, however, fail to redeem "Tiptoe", which has the fault of trivializing Alison's prodigious voice (here split into two different vocal lines) by immersing it in an insipid melody.

It's "Deep Honey", if anything, that gives us back the bewitching, sensual chanteuse of "Utopia" and "Lovely Head", but it's only a brief interlude. With "Twist", in fact, things immediately slip into a crude synth-pop worthy of late-period Garbage, seasoned with a few flashes of house and a sexually explicit lyric ("Metti la tua sporca faccia da angelo/ tra le gambe e il pizzo delle mie mutande".) that sounds tragically out of place coming from the angelic Alison. In "Strict Machine" one can even glimpse the ghost of Donna Summer's "Love To Love You Baby" behind a wall of synths and percussion, but it's a fleeting and, all things considered, disturbing vision. "Slippage" helps lift spirits a little, a "saturated" fusion of industrial beats and sensual sighs: an excellent exercise in style, but, once again, what's missing is the soul.

The sounds are refined, the production superb, but from a talent as innate as Alison Goldfrapp's one expects much more, especially after having glimpsed her great potential along the spectral paths of Felt Mountain.

In 2005 Supernature completes Alison Goldfrapp's downward arc.

The single "Ooh La La" is a techno-pop earworm steeped in electroclash, commercial, predictable, backward-looking in its arrangements. The fact that electroclash was already running out its life cycle doesn't help, but the mistake is tiresomely repeated throughout the record. "Lovely 2 C U", "Ride A White Horse", "Satin Chic" are songs without bite, without charm. If such a thing existed, they'd amount to self-plagiarism. What little raw electroclash there is gets neutered by ballads devoid of imagination and meaning, like "Let It Take You" and "Time Out From The World".

The Numan-esque "Koko" is saved, and above all the solemn, extremely elegant "U Never Know", where an army of firefly-bats delivers Alison a grammy for the year's most beautiful voice; but not the pallid synth-pop of "Number 1", for which I don't feel like invoking either Moroder or Studio 54. The nicest song is, by cruel irony, the bonus track on the Japanese edition.

Surprisingly, however, Seventh Tree (2008) returns to its roots. Ten tracks over roughly forty minutes alternating enchanted melodies constantly balanced between dreamy pop, electronic nods to Portishead and sprinkles of rain. And the feeling is that, after their uncertain electro digressions, Goldfrapp have finally come home. The opening "Clowns" lights the way with a radiant melody amid birdsong and a vocal performance that leaves you open-mouthed. But there's also room for the playful perfection of the refined, Beatles-esque "Happiness", poised between rarefied electronics and auteur pop. With "Eat Yourself" the air suddenly turns seventies, amid Kate Bush-style reverb, and a tear-jerking finale. One suddenly feels immersed in an autumn sunset: dry leaves, a light breeze and romantic sadness. The gentle ups and downs of "Cologne Cerrone Houdini" are perhaps the record's peak.

On the other side of the scale there are a few somewhat less memorable tracks worth noting. Starting with the single "A&E", which represents the project's radio-friendly side: a rather flat 3 minutes and 19 seconds. And while there's hippie form and substance in "Caravan Girl", accompanied by old-style little keyboards, the catchy "Some People", masterfully carried by a vocal performance of the highest order, nonetheless makes one wince for its excess of baroque flourishes.

Flaws aside, however, a decisive change of direction.

With Head First (2010), however, the Bristol duo once again swerves sharply, fleeing towards a perhaps too easy (and predictable) eighties revival, as if the times almost demanded it by law.

We're sailing on very clear waters, no clouds and a shining sun. MTV is awash with the video for "Rocket", the lead single, in which Alison Goldfrapp drives down her own Route 66. Full-throttle revivalism, neon colors everywhere, synths sweeping everything away and the usual impeccably calibrated voice of Bristol's angelic miss. And the following "Believer" too, in its dreamy, danceable banality, hits big, lodging itself immediately in the memory.

Tunes to sing in the shower? For now, yes; "Alive" slots in a third potential hit amid crystal-clear keyboards and sequins. Old-school synth-pop stretches out over the notes of "Dreaming", perhaps the album's peak, and in the ethereal warbling of the title track. But it's a flash in the pan, because as the listen goes on, good old Alison manages to string together a series of tracks that aren't bad, but are rather banal. Things fizzle out on the pseudo-sensual bluster of "Shiny And Warm" or on the feral "Voicething" (see Fever Ray).

In short, a record that, despite a few flickers of life, ends up feeling like yet another dead end.

2012 is a year for stocktaking: Mute releases The Singles, a glittering retrospective featuring two new tracks (“Melancholy Sky” and “Yellow Halo”). A singles compilation isn't exactly the natural destination for a trip-hop band, so something must have shifted along the way: add to that the constant media attention paid to Alison Goldfrapp's career. “Ooh La La”, a fashion-runway audiovisual flourish, is placed front and centre to mark the handover between the Bristol past and the new worldliness.

Beyond the peaks of “Rocket” and “Lovely Head”, the duo's artistic output seems to have run aground on ambiguous emotional and stylistic ideas – too glossy for the “true believer” crowd, yet too mannered for genre devotees. But as the tracks of “The Singles” unfold, the real sticking point appears to be the composed, introspective streak (though just how introspective, really?) running through this low-voltage pop.

Not every single made the cut: the tracks left off the tracklist are “Caravan Girl” (Edit), “Clowns”, the “radio mix” of “Pilots (On A Star)”, the single version of “Human”, the single mix of “Twist” and the “radio edit” of “Fly Me Away”.

Yet the compilation, much like Head First, fails to achieve the hoped-for impact, and a year later Goldfrapp return to the more intimate, dreamlike language of their early days, once again trying to reassure their fanbase – a fanbase in love with the icy perfection of Felt Mountain but sorely tested by Alison's mood swings and her insatiable hunger to become a glamorous pop diva – and to remind them that beneath the glitter and the chart ambitions, they've always remained the same act.

It's impossible to know what truly lies behind their stylistic duality, whether it's cold calculation or unpredictable instinct, but with Tales Of Us (2013) those doubts can be set aside, finally satisfied by a thoroughly accomplished album buoyed by a genuine dose of inspiration. The stories told here are all clearly aware of being the best that Will Gregory and Alison Goldfrapp can offer at this stage of their career, utterly indifferent to commercial returns or sounding à la page, and they truly deserve the praise their earliest fans will no doubt heap on them.

Genre enthusiasts won't miss the quirk of titling the album's tracks after first names, just like that dream-pop cornerstone, the Cocteau Twins' “Treasure”" (Cocteau Twins). The similarities with the Scottish band's masterpiece end there, though: the atmospheres of “Tales Of Us” might in fact recall Victorialand more closely, albeit less iridescent and cast in a nocturnal light. It's a calm, reflective work in which almost every electro-dance ambition is set aside in favour of a rigorous, vintage folk-pop, and an electronic component so minimal as to be almost imperceptible. And if the final result comes across as downright austere, the delicate acoustic embroidery of the enchanting single “Drew” or tracks like “Simone” couldn't be a better setting for Goldfrapp's soft, whispered delivery, here reined in vocally too.

With the exception of the startling “Thea”, which literally and unexpectedly shatters the album's flow, Alison's celestial voice overwhelmed by dark electronic undertows reminiscent of Black Cherry's heyday (though without losing its delicacy of intent), Tales Of Us sounds cohesive, like a slow continuum that demands repeated, attentive listening to pick up on the nonetheless substantial nuances between tracks.

Only then will you be won over by the Eastern-tinged lullaby of “Jo”, by the more melancholy dreamy melodies of “Annabel” and “Ulla”, or by the circular, dark-wave gloom of “Alvar”. The only ray of (faint) light the Bristol duo grants the listener comes courtesy of the closing, placid “Clay” – but not before bringing to mind the unrepeatable alchemy of their debut, via the chilling string-laden opening of “Stranger” and the bleak cabaret of “Laurel”.

Fifteen years on from their debut, a new turning point arrives with Silver Eye (2017). That the new album might mark a return to the abrasive, electro-clash sound of the controversial Black Cherry was something you could sense from the rather unassuming single “Anymore” alone. And yet it's fascinating how the pair refuse to let their audience settle into anything too safe or comfortable, needling them with every new release, indifferent to both reception and the inevitable disappointments.

Abandon all hope, those of you searching for airy mountain vistas, bucolic acoustic poetry or Morricone-esque suggestions. At best, try seeking shelter in the icy spell of the remarkable “Moon In Your Mouth” and the spectral “Faux Suede Drifter”, or let yourself be swept up by the faint tribalism of “Tigerman” and “Beast That Never Was”. Because the heart of “Silver Eye” is claustrophobic and overflowing with industrial layering, helped along by the contribution of The Haxan Cloak (The Haxan Cloack) – his second prestigious collaboration after working with Bjork – on tracks like the dark “Zodiac Black” and the passive-aggressive “Ocean”, among the record's best. Once again Alison Goldfrapp keeps her crystalline vocal flourishes to a minimum, lingering instead on a whispered (and filtered) register grappling with melodies that are at times almost too intangible, often drowned out by the booming production in a manner not unlike recent Depeche Mode. For the first time in their career, it almost feels as though Will Gregory wanted to rein in his imposing bandmate, rather than lean on her voice and flamboyance as the defining elements of this new chapter.

Only in a handful of tracks do the pair try to lighten the mood and rediscover the pop vein that ran through their more electronic work. They manage it, more or less, without undermining the underlying darkness or slipping into the kitsch of “Head First”, with a less-than-essential “Become The One” and, above all, the brisk “Everything Is Never Enough”. Only “Systemagic”, though, with its 80s fascinations à-la “Pop Muzik”, really seems to have the right appeal to tickle the fancy of advertisers and fashion designers.

In the past, Goldfrapp and Gregory have often been accused of harbouring commercial ambitions whenever they ventured into more electro territory, but the austerity with which they've imbued “Silver Eye” (not too far removed from “Tales Of Us”, which almost becomes its acoustic counterpart) is a flat denial of that charge. This time they simply felt like adding new, bleak colours to their ever-shifting fresco.

In 2023 the blonde half of the electronic duo decides to produce The Love Invention on her own. For this new venture she enlists the talented James Greenwood and British producer Richard X, with whom she'd already worked back in the “Head First” days. It's probably from that 2010 record that she picks up the idea of exploring eighties dance and recreating sparkling, carefree atmospheres made for dancing in live clubs. Goldfrapp's voice floats irresistibly over a refined bed of synths, slipping into a luminous electro-pop dress on the opener “Never Stop”, or turning hazier and more sensual, Kylie Minogue-style, on the title track, an ode to the power of seduction and attraction. The declared aim is to plunge us into a lush world where surrendering to dancefloor grooves is the only way forward. Every attempt to tackle weightier themes (“So Hard So Hot”) feels clumsy. The English singer is far more at ease evoking nights full of passion (“Hotel (Suite 23)”) or delivering eclectic dream-pop-style ballads (“Electric Blue”).

Certainly, The Love Invention would have risen to another level entirely had Goldfrapp managed, on every track, to pair her sophisticated beats with equally irresistible hooks. It's easy to fall for “Fever (This Is the Real Thing)” in this respect, its sinuous synth swirls making it one of the album's high points. The nods to Róisín Murphy are so blatant that the whole track could be read as a tribute to the Irish songwriter's art. Then again, “The Love Invention” is hardly short on references. In some cases they're even more convincing than the originals. A prime example is “Gatto Gelato”, whose title alone nods to Italian disco music.

Ultimately, this is a decidedly comforting work that remains convincing even in its most reflective moments, like the closing track "SloFlo", held together by little more than a voice that seems to come from another realm and by diffuse washes of synth.

From the chilly temperatures of Bristol's trip-hop laboratory to the warmth of the sunniest Mediterranean beaches. Two years on, the meteorological evolution in Alison Goldfrapp's world continues. If The Love Invention laid the groundwork for a radical shift in Alison's artistic path, after twenty honorable years alongside her trusted partner Will Gregory, Flux amplifies the matter even further.

The nod to disco music and a certain ultra-saturated synth-pop is brazen from the opening one-two punch alone, namely the sprightly "Hey Hi Hello" and the magnetic "Sound & Light", steering the listener into a climate of danceable fascinations that's explicit in the lyrics too, before "Reverberotic" delivers a cybernetic jolt to the tracklist, with its sci-fi stride somewhere between Motor and Modeselektor that always does its dirty work well.

The English singer once again chases the erotic sighs of Kylie Minogue, and "Strange Things Happen" is the track where that's most pronounced. In this parade of synths swirling through the sky of an 80s summer night, what's perhaps missing is the real showstopper, or the potential hit that would bring Alison back to the upper echelons. And here and there some less convincing moments creep in too, or at least ones that water down the elements described so far a bit too much. A case in point? "Play It (Shine Like A Nova Star)". Things work better, though, when eighties beats and keyboards operate under whispered melodies, complete with a refrain that glides over everything without ever truly taking flight.

It won't be the album of the summer, nor even Goldfrapp's best release, but Flux has an underlying cohesion that makes it somehow appealing, notwithstanding an excessive indulgence in the comfiest revivalism of the last fifteen years or so.

Contributions by Veronica Rosi (“Supernature”), Alberto Asquini (“Seventh Tree”, “Head First”), Matteo Monaco (“The Singles”) and Stefano Fiori (“Tales Of Us”, “Silver Eye”), Fabio Ferrara (“The Love Invention”), Giuliano Delli Paoli (“Flux”)

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