Releases/
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New single
MELANCHOLY SKY
8 Jan 2012
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New album
THE SINGLES
6 Feb 2012 |
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Live dates/
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Latest updates/
Disco Dec 21
Video May 28
Gigo Nov 01
Press Apr 03
Pictures Jul 08
Bootleg May 04
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Our Myspace/
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Official site
Official forum
Official Myspace
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|
| Date |
May 2003 |
| Type |
Mag |
| Source |
Q, issue 202 |
| Title |
Down boy! |
| Country |
UK |
| Journalist/Photographer |
Tobby Manning / Polly Borland |
| Pix |
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| Text |
Sultry ambiant diva gets dark electro makeover.
At first it sems that everyone's favourite post-Portishead romantics have done a Radiohead. You know the drill : establish a winning formula, sell tones of records then dramatically ditch said formula for the hotly anticipated follow-up. If the stark, dark Black cherry is not quite Goldfrapp's Kid A, the former Tricky, Orbital and Add N to (X) chanteuse Alison Goldfrapp and her West Country electronics partner Will Gregory have still taken quite a chance in following up 2000's lush, wide screen, half-million-selling Felt Mountain.
This time Goldfrapp have stripped back the strings, muted the drama and created a record of jerky, twilit, hard-edged electro. This is no belated jump at the electroclash bandwagon, mind, owing more to Iggy Pop's pitch-black, Bowie-produced 1977 album The Idiot, a numbingly cold merger of rock, rhythm and edgy electronics. In particular the startling lead single Train, with its glam rock chug and car alarm synths, recalls The Idiot's Nighclubbing. It's an approach almost diametrically opposed to Goldfrapp's former lush romanticism. Elsewhere, there are poppier, dancy moves on the not-entirely-convincing Twist, while Strict Machine gaily ups the glam rock factor to more engaging effect. But Tiptoe's attempt to merge old and new is a schizophrenic oddity, suggesting Kate Bush dueting with icy '70s synth combo Suicide.
Weirdly, the filmic tracks are even more blushingly voluptuous than last time. Black Cherry itself is a ballad so sensuous you can almost hear the juices oozing from Goldfrapp's red-smeared lips and, set against tinkling harpsichord, Deep Honey's vocal is so shiveringly breethy it's hard no to wonder whether the woman had company in the vocal booth. Then there's Hairy Trees with its watery strings and invitation to "touch my garden", a sexy come-on the Cheecky Girls couldn't even begin to imagine.
Ossiliating between cold and dark, woozy and horny, would-be seducers will plainly need to make full use of their CD players'programm function. They won't be alone. But for all its experiment and inconsistency, Black Cheery is still a thoroughly likeable album. |
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