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|
| Date |
August 2005 |
| Type |
Mag |
| Source |
Attitude magazine, issue 136 |
| Title |
Glam Slam |
| Country |
UK |
| Journalist/Photographer |
Simon Gage/ Ross Kirton |
| Pix |
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| Text |
GOLDFRAPPS glittering return is being hailed as a Scissor Sisters for 2005. Attitude shares a fag with ultra-glam Alison Goldfrapp.
?Can you order porn off the internet now?? asks Alison Goldfrapp the woman behind the album people are beginning to say will be this years Scissor Sisters in an "out-there-goes-mainstream" kind of way. She?s looking very inch the edgy pop star kicking back at Saint Martins Lane - the most stylish hotel in London - wearing 70s shades, tight jeans and a Pierrot T-shirt, smoking fags and drinking coffees,
?Because I don?t really like going down those porn shops in Soho?, she goes on with a throaty chuckle. ?I always think I?m going to go down there into one of those basements and run into ten people I know from the music industry. You know, the head of A&R at Sony Records or someone?
Blame the interest in sauce on her background as an artist specialising in bizarre performance pieces like Love Sick, where she sat moping in a glass box attached to a drip for days on end; blame it on the fact she is one sexy minx with no fear about marching into traditional male strongholds like sex shops (?They?re much more intimidated when a woman goes in there on her own!?), but whatever it is, Alison Goldfrapp has two distinct porn collections: one is coffee-table porn, mainly from the 50s, 60s and 70s that she leaves around for house guests to browse, the other her own personal stash stuffed into a laundry bag in a room that says ?No Entry?.
And the sexiness sure comes through in the work. The video for Ooh La La, the genius first single from Supernature , is a glam rock-out, featuring Alison looking fuck-off fantastic in ridicoulsly flared trousers and a Biba-esque skull cap, and with boys hauled in from the streets and poured into Sweet-esque trousers so tight you can almost count their pubes.
?I don?t know what I was focussing on for the last album? says Alison. ?Sex probably. But this time I wanted to play a bit more on the vocals: vocal sounds, backwards pianos. It was a lot of fun actually. With Black Cherry, we were still kind of finding our place with how we wanted to use synthesisers and stuff, and I think with this one we have sort of settled in. And we?re more comfortable and confident with the songwriting, it's like, 'if we want to use strings with this, we will!'?
The effect is a strange hybrid of Glitter Band, Kate Bush - a big influence - and the imimitable Alison Goldfrapp vocal, used to great effect on Tricky's Maxinquaye, where she sort of started out, and Orbital's Snivilisation. But it was only when she teamed up with the elusive Will Gregory (he doesn?t often do interviews, doesn?t tour, doesn?t even appear on the front of the album sleeves) that she took control, became Goldfrapp and started turning out albums like Felt Mountain and Black Cherry that the critics prematurely ejaculated over.
It?s quite and unexpected place to wind up for the girl who went to a strict Catholic convent school and actually loved every minute of it. Mind you, she used to kiss her David Cassidy album every night, so who knows what was going on in that head!
?I loved the nuns? she says, though no doubt the nuns had a funny moment when they saw her parading with girls in animal heads in one of her videos (her mum has requested that she doesn?t do that again: too pagan!) ?I thought they were amazing. I saw them as really strong. There was Sister Therese Marie who used to wear her black polo neck and a big crucifix with a stiff skirt and sensible shoes - a bit dykey - and I just thought, ?Wow!? It seemed very glamorous in a way because it was in beautiful surroundings?.
But having failed a very important nun exam, Alison was shipped to the nearest comprehensive which she hated; her mum thought it would bring her down to earth as she was a little bit ?away with the fairies?, but she was bullied, started sniffing Tippex and ended up doing Community Service. She eventually got the hell out and ended up with a grant from the British Council to sing with an arty dance troupe in Belgium, which is where she had the closest thing to a lesbian experience.
?I got approached by a lady in a swimming pool in this very beautiful house outside Antwerp,? she says, busy with her next cigarette. ?Everybody had left and I was alone in the pool with this girl. I remember feeling slightly uncomfortable but intrigued, and it was only about three years later that I actually though to myself, 'Hmm! What was that about?'?
From Antwerp she went to University in Middlesex to study Fine Art, and through that and her infamous performance pieces she got into music and singing. So, now you know why the presentation of those albums is so on the money.
? I do get help on the design of the albums but I think ultimately it has to come from you really, otherwise it just doesn?t seem to work. Its funny, midway through making an album I think, 'I can?t be arsed to do this', but then you realise that someone else can't do it. People do try and influence me and I usually say 'no'?. It?s a very old-skool approach in a landscape where it's just acceptable just to turn up, do your bit, and let other people fix the rest, but it's an approach that worked for the likes of Kate Bush and Joni Mitchell, so you can't help but think she?s got a point.
Now based in Bath, where she has what she calls her ?retreat?, Alison is missing the filth and energy of London a bit, and missing her ?gentleman action?, who is based in the capital. ?I do get lonely down there sometimes when I?m working?, says Alison, demonstrating none of the spikiness some journalists comment on, but then she?s never been one to hide her feelings if someone is getting on her tits. ?Oh, when I?m in a mood everyone knows it,? she laughs. ?But I?m better at controlling it now, definitely. I?m a bit more mature now.?
Summer is looking good for the Goldfrapp lady. Not only is there the single and the album, but there are performances, including Brixton Academy, and hopefully there?ll be plenty of hanging out, smoking and snogging.
?Ive got a bit of thing about kissing,? she chortles. ?I love kissing. There?s something really intimate about it, whereas fucking someone can be more detached in a way. You can do it watching telly. Or having a fag! Which I have done actually. I thought it was the most blasé, fantastically indulgent thing to do!? That?s Alison Goldfrapp for you. Enjoy.
Ooh La La is released 8 August followed by the album Supernature on 22 August on Mute records |
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