Releases/
 |
New single
MELANCHOLY SKY
8 Jan 2012
|
 |
New album
THE SINGLES
6 Feb 2012 |
..................................
Live dates/
..................................
Latest updates/
Disco Dec 21
Video May 28
Gigo Nov 01
Press Apr 03
Pictures Jul 08
Bootleg May 04
..................................
Our Myspace/
..................................
Official site
Official forum
Official Myspace
.................................. |
|
| Date |
April 2003 |
| Type |
Review |
| Source |
Music House |
| Title |
Black Cherry |
| Country |
UK |
| Journalist/Photographer |
|
| Text |
Following their half-million selling debut 'Felt Mountain' Goldfrapp return with a brand new album, 'Black Cherry' due for release on Mute on the 28th of April.
From the electric shriek of their first release 'Lovely Head', to the glitterball glamour of their live shows, Goldfrapp have never been shy of making an entrance.
Their 2000 debut album ?Felt Mountain? was a spellbinding cocktail of dreamy narcotic moods, elements of tango and torch songs wrapped in edgy electronica. Acclaimed worldwide, it was a timeless collection that made an emphatic soundtrack to the start of the new millennium. "The sound of a bench being marked" Time Out
If the sensual world of debut album ?Felt Mountain? was infused with the scent of dark fantasy and imaginary landscapes, their new album ?Black Cherry? adds the sounds and energy of the city, the whirl of fairgrounds and the rush of desire.
'Black Cherry? still builds on their trademark experimental edges and that awesome force is every bit as evident and not a shred less relevant. From the heartbroken beauty of the title track and the inordinately sensual, disturbed purr of 'Deep Honey' to the sonic whirlpools of 'Tiptoe', ?Black Cherry? reinforces Goldfrapp?s siren?like ability to suck you into other realms. On first hearing, the driving basslines of 'Train' or 'Strict Machine', or the playfully, joyously sexual 'Twist' seem a world away from some of ?Felt Mountain?s? atmospherics but anyone who witnessed the energy and potent intensity of last year?s live shows would recognise the feeling behind them. As Alison remembers, "The shows often started very controlled and really intense, so it was a big release live to be able to hit things, to let go and explode".
Disco and its ability to sprinkle string-soaked glamour onto concrete and synthesise passion from tragedy makes a suitable parallel for the wonderful escapism of ?Felt Mountain? and its multi-coloured successor. A lot of ?Black Cherry? sounds like it was born on a fantasy dancefloor in an alien landscape, never mind in the fertile minds of a creative London boy and a darkly imaginative Hampshire girl.
Apart from the twisted disco of 'Strict Machine' (with its whip-like snare sound recalling the baroque fantasy of ?Felt Mountain?s? title track) and 'Train', standout tracks inhabit other extremes. There?s the English countrysci-fi of 'Hairy Trees', and the disorienting ennui of 'Forever' but it is in 'Tiptoe' that there is arguably found 'Black Cherry'?s centrepiece. Starting with motorik rhythms and a piercing synths followed by Alison?s deep down voice, 'Tiptoe' builds relentlessly until it subtly transforms itself into another song entirely, hinting at Giorgio Moroder?s and Donna Summer?s soundtrack to ?The Deep? and inexorably mixing voice into and through the soaring strings.
Meanwhile 'Twist', rooted in an adolescent fantasy of running off with a diesel-fingered fairground boy, is sex as candyfloss stickiness and generator buzz, all wrapped up in the wild scream of the waltzers.
Contrarily, the title track 'Black Cherry' is probably the most emotional and beautiful song Goldfrapp have ever done. "Personal stuff," sighs Alison, and won't expand.
The magic of Goldfrapp?s appeal is still potent and suggestive with the mystery, the sense of something below the surface, being just tantalisingly out of reach. Despite the apparent playfulness ?Black Cherry? also has an undercurrent of a fizzing, insistent itch that probably goes deeper than what Will describes as the "heavy atmosphere" where they recorded, "with the bad air staying down in the valley".
With ?Black Cherry? they entwine classic songwriting with the most abstract of modern music, making a bold statement in an increasingly fractured world.
Goldfrapp have again managed to pull off that rarest of feats, the ability to attain an intensity of expression and to be both futuristic and familiar. They have made this territory their own. |
|
|
|
|
;)
