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| Date |
December 17 2000 |
| Type |
Interview |
| Source |
Launch Yahoo |
| Title |
Whips, wolves & Tricky |
| Country |
UK |
| Journalist/Photographer |
Ken Micallef |
| Text |
Alison Goldfrapp is suspicious. And annoyed. Given to exclamations of "Oh my God" and "Bloody hell," the singer grows frustrated explaining the pop tone poems of her surreal debut album, Felt Mountain. Like Shirley Bassey singing in a lost Federico Fellini film, or Dusty Springfield in a late-'20s Berlin cabaret, Felt Mountain is beautifully bizarre.
"Oh my God, it is so complex," she sighs. "Whenever you make anything, it's really personal, because it is your own perspective, which might not be other people's perspective. The visual thing is very much a necessity to my writing. So many things--mad, mad things. [Album track] 'Oompa Radar.' God. That was influenced by Roman Polanski's Cul De Sac. 'Felt Mountain' was this idea of a wolf being whipped in this little Tudor house overlooking a snowy landscape. And that turns into someone yodeling. I can't put it all into words."
Goldfrapp is no stranger to fantastic sonic circumstances. Her voice has graced the music of Tricky (on Maxinquaye), Orbital (Snivilisation), and John Parish, and she began her career singing for the ballet in her native Hampshire, England. Like other women making unique U.K. music--Portishead's Beth Gibbons, Lamb's Louise Rhodes, Laika's Margaret Fiedler--Goldfrapp has learned much and nothing from her male collaborators.
"In the music business, you have to toughen up around all these men," she explains. "But that's also why I got so despondent with people I was working with. Especially in the dance world, people dealing with beats--that was like being in a boy's club, for sure. Like Tricky, he did my head in. I got bored with these boys in their bedrooms who thought they knew everything, but actually were very uninspiring and knew very little."
With co-composer Will Gregory, Goldfrapp assembled an unusual cast to perform on Felt Mountain. Along with old analog synths played by Gregory and her own whistling, Goldfrapp enlisted Portishead's Adrian Utley on bass, and other musicians dispatching ukulele, koto, melodica, and numerous string and brass instruments. Additionally, a chorus of "men humming" can be heard among the frigid tones of "Paper Bag," which begins with the lyric, "No time to f--k, but you like the rush." Goldfrapp again sighs when asked about the suggestive lyric.
"Oh my God. It is quite a lot of things," she says. "Business, the sad existence which that can bring about, people who are obsessed with making money. It's also about being obsessed with someone and not being able to have them, just watching them. And, oh..."--sigh--"about what a farcical and utterly useless thing it would be to make a hat out of a paper bag when it's raining. Does that satisfy you?" Fiendish laughter. "I suppose it is a metaphor."
"Paper Bag" is followed by the deliciously twisted "Human," a sexy mambo groove quaking with brass blasts, erotic maracas, tumescent strings, and Goldfrapp's husky, post-coital voice. "Oompa Radar" recalls a deviant sex show in Weimar Republic-era Berlin; over a beer-barrel polka beat and muted horns, Goldfrapp coos and conducts her imaginary band. But Felt Mountain's centerpieces are the opening "Lovely Head," a squirming tale of Hammer horror, and the gorgeous "Pilots," a melancholy classic in the John Barry tradition of 007 theme songs, which seems to describe travelers floating in the atmosphere high above our green globe.
"'Pilots' is my sci-fi image, a dream about being inside of this huge black bomber. Rubber radiators for clouds! This idea of feeling very small in the big scheme of things: 'What the f--k am I?' The idea of machinery being your friends. In a city you can hear people everywhere--upstairs, next door, downstairs. But if you're always worried about who's looking in your window, it can be a bit much. But there probably is somebody looking at you from somewhere."
Goldfrapp laughs uncomfortably, unsure of her explanation. She then tries to explain the story behind "Horse Tears," Felt Mountain's crying-jag closing track, but it goes nowhere.
"That is a love song, really. Yeah, a love song." She laughs. "I can't say any more." |
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