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|
| Date |
February 2001 |
| Type |
Mag |
| Source |
Q |
| Title |
Alison?s Starting To Happen |
| Country |
UK |
| Journalist/Photographer |
Nick Duerden / Mick Hutson |
| Pix |
    |
| Text |
Alison?s Starting To Happen
Big of voice, short of temper, full of feminine hygiene products.
Goldfrapp
Trabendo, Paris
4 December 2000
ALISON GOLDFRAPP looks displeased. Sat backstage in a tiny dressing room, a frown is holding her face to ransom. Right now, this is the last place on earth she wants to be. Tonight is a Mute Records night in Paris, featuring a line-up of deeply idiosyncratic bands (Goldfrapp, Add N To (X), Echoboy, Christian Vogel) whose only common thread is the label they?re signed to.
Between each set, guest DJs play ? currently, Mute label boss Daniel Miller is manning the decks. Whatever it is he is actually playing ? the sound of sonic warfare ? Daleks dabbling in autoerotic sex ? ? the bass is devilishly loud, and it?s this that is causing Alison?s frown. She has the flu, her sinuses are severely blocked, and the constant boom-boom-boom is causing her insides to quake.
?Christ, that fucking noise is painful,? she complains, scrabbling through a veritable pharmacy of herbal concoctions in front of her, before finding whatever it is she?s looking for. In a deft move that suggests she?s done this type of thing before, she inserts it, then manages something of a half smile. ?It drowns out that fucking noise,? she says. ?It?s surprisingly effective.? Alison Goldfrapp now has a tampon poking out of her right ear.
A ?flu bug has been following Goldfrapp around through dates in Italy and southern France, before finally descending on Alison earlier today. When she meets us in the hotel lobby three hours before showtime, she doesn?t smile but merely points at her throat and mimes, ?No voice?. Gamely, however, she tops up on her steroid intake ? via a small canister that looks like an asthma inhaler ? and later, the vocal chords are completely restored.
?Magic?, she deadpans, like Paul Daniels on hearing that Every Second Counts has been cancelled forever.
Onstage, the band playing studiously around her, it?s hard to detect any evidence of germs. But midway through a five-song, 20-minute set she storms off, annoyed that ?the ?flu? is preventing her from scaling the heights she should, but some gentle applause eventually coaxes her back. Post-show, she will grumble about her voice being shot to pieces, the crowd being too cool for her liking, and the abundance of cigarette smoke everywhere. But Alison is being hard on herself, for tonight Goldfrapp are wonderful.
Comprising just two members ? which swell to five on stage ? Alison and will Gregory first teamed up two years ago sharing mutual love of Ennio Morricone and 60?s French pop. Gregory, now in is mid-thirties, had been a session musician for years, including a stint with Tears For Fears during their mid-80?s period of world domination, before going on to write soundtrack music for film and TV.
Meanwhile, Goldfrapp, 30, has lent her vocals to a variety of projects, including tours with Orbital and Tricky.
?But that?s very much in the past now,? she says, definitely. ?Ultimately, I find it incredibly boring and, sometimes, fucking terrible singing other people?s songs. It?s like having sex with someone you didn?t really want to have sex with in the first place and waking up in the morning full of regret. I learnt a lot from it, and I got paid, but it?s not what I?m about at all.?
Together, they have created one of last year?s more arresting albums, Felt Mountain, a collection of nine highly stylized, artfully dramatic songs full of pseudo-James Bond seduction scene themes and an all-enveloping elegant, icy chill. Is it? whisper now ? the return of trip hop ?
?I don?t even know what trip hop is,? sneers Alison in response. ?And anyway, trip hop was full of beats. We don?t do beats. We just like making music that has a genuine sense of cinematic atmosphere. I think we seem to have confused certain audiences ? especially English ones. They don?t quite know where to place us. France seems much more receptive.?
On stage, Alison stands before three microphones, two of which Gregory uses to make her voice sound, alternatively, like a theremin, a string section, and a particularly operatic cat on heat. She?s magnificent to watch ? as tremulous and breathy as Shirley Bassey, as fractured as Beth Gibbons, and as otherwordly as Björk.
On utopia, the band?s most straightforward ?ballad?, for example, she comes across like blue-blooded pop royalty, full of pose and poise; the very dictionary definition of statuesque. Pilots, meanwhile, features a dazzling array of vocal acrobatics, while the snake-charming Human suggests that beneath the icy veneer, there is indeed warmth, and maybe even a pulse, to boot. It?s a short, mesmerizing performance, and proof that Goldfrapp are now destined to be the coffee table band of 2001.
Back in the dressing-room, Alison?s still scowling. ?That was shit, wasn?t it ? Absolute shit.? She doesn?t wait for a response, merely locates then inserts the tampon into ear, and allows the frown to consume her whole. |
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