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 18 2003 |
| Type |
Review |
| Source |
The Guardian |
| Title |
Black Cherry |
| Country |
UK |
| Journalist/Photographer |
Alexis Petridis |
| Text |
It's fair to say that the future of chill-out music - the soundtrack-friendly genre formerly known as trip-hop - is not among the burning issues currently taxing the British music scene.
In a music industry troubled by plummeting sales, it shifts vast quantities, to people you suspect don't buy many other records. Zero 7's debut album, for instance, sold close to 1m copies, while Lemon Jelly recently sold out four nights at London's 2,000-capacity Forum.
Artistically, however, it's difficult to see where chill-out will go next. The soothing properties of old soul and easy listening samples have surely been exploited to death over the past couple of years, but what else can these deliberately faceless artists do? They don't have personalities from which to draw inspiration; instead they have record collections. What happens when they have used all the good records up?
Personality is not a commodity that former Orbital and Tricky collaborator Alison Goldfrapp seems to lack. Her childhood took in expulsion from a convent school, glue-sniffing and car theft. During a 2001 concert, she punched a photographer. Her interview technique would give Jeremy Paxman the night sweats. Judging by her press cuttings, whenever a journalist is within earshot she embarks on a single-minded mission to appear as rude and conceited as possible. You wouldn't necessarily want to meet her, but you have to admit it makes a change from nice chaps called Henry and Nick mumbling about wanting to avoid the spotlight.
The problem with Goldfrapp's records to date is that her personality has failed to impact upon her sound. She may display all the charm of a cuttlefish, but her Mercury-nominated debut album, Felt Mountain, wafted by in a pleasant haze of regulation chill-out influences - French pop, gently chugging breakbeats, Ennio Morricone soundtracks - with only some peculiar lyrics about horses and fascists to suggest a more quirky mind at work. Like a lot of chill-out music, it was deemed inoffensive enough to flog mobile phones (her single Lovely Head featured on the One2One advert campaign) and cars (the perky music behind the Renault Clio Va Va Voom ads was also her work).
Perhaps Goldfrapp herself was dissatisfied with its shortcomings. Train, the first single to be taken from her second album Black Cherry, indicates a major sonic overhaul. The soundtracky string arrangements and trip-hop rhythms have been replaced by something considerably darker and more interesting. Its beat sounds like an electronic variant on a glam rock stomp: David Bowie's Jean Genie fed through machines until it attains a whip-crack precision.
Above it, distorted synthesisers squawk and buzz, while Goldfrapp's voice switches from icy hauteur during the verses to cooing sensuality during the alarmingly catchy chorus. You can't imagine many mobile phone companies choosing it to advertise free airtime deals or picture messaging, but as a slice of forward-thinking pop music, it works brilliantly.
It is not the only surprise that Black Cherry constructs from ex-directory influences. Strict Machine has the sort of tubthumping drums once closely associated with Gary Glitter, 1980s stadium rock synthesisers, and growling electronic noises familiar from a frankly horrible offshoot of drum'n'bass known as hardstep. The end result is not only fantastic, but quiveringly sexy to boot - a fairly inexplicable state of affairs given its source material.
Then there is Twist: rock music in 2003 surely needs no more songs influenced by early 1980s electro-pop, but Twist boasts such a winning chorus it's impossible not to be impressed. Hairy Trees, meanwhile, has a lovely vocal and what sounds like a dulcimer plonking away in the background - you just have to overlook its unfortunate melodic resemblance to Marillion's Pseudo Silk Kimono.
Black Cherry has its less inspired moments. The title track and Forever are standard-issue chill-out ballads. They should get the advertising agencies on the phone, but sound pallid compared with the rest of the album. Packed with orgasmic moans, closing track Slippage heads too far in the opposite direction. Like some ghastly musical equivalent of Jordan, it piles the sex kittenry on too thick and winds up overinflated and deeply embarrassing.
For the most part, however, Black Cherry is an unexpected delight. In a genre filled with utilitarian background music, primarily designed to avoid causing offence, it kicks up a fuss, demands the listener's undivided attention and boasts a unique personality. Among the vast swathes of tastefully packaged aural air-freshener, its crankiness and dark humour are provocative and appealing. But aural air-freshener may well be what your average chill-out fan is after. How they will react to Goldfrapp's new direction is open to debate.
Whichever way it goes, Black Cherry is a laudable, challenging and immensely enjoyable album. |
|
|
|
|
;)
