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 |
21/07/03 |
| Country |
Australia |
| Town |
Sydney |
| Venue |
The Metro Theatre |
| Reviews |
- Alison Goldfrapp is an electro cadet in black uniform, twirling through starlit landscapes and dirty underground vaults lit electric pink and siren red; sometimes crooning ethereal sopranos and wailing whistles, sometimes purring seductively, deep growls. The audience love it ? falling dead silent for her sweetly haunting solos, and stomping and swaying to the dirty dark beats of the more synth-heavy numbers, like 'Train'. She can't fail to please, with an 80s electro-trash style that is in fashion but carried off with such comfort and natural attitude, and her undeniable singing talent. If you are thinking of her early hit 'Utopia', let me answer the question on the tip of your tongue ? yes, she really can hit those high notes. Alison Goldfrapp is one of those rare pleasures, a performer whose live voice is virtually undistinguishable from the studio product. She has a fine recording pedigree, being a album vocalist for Tricky in the past.
The accompanying musical interludes and violin solos are also sublime, giving us an impression of a group of professional musicians that take their music very very seriously. You can imagine the challenge of reproducing in a live concert the rich texture of the Felt Mountain and Black Cherry albums, when you can't take 20 musicians on tour. Goldfrapp have settled on just 3 besides Alison and her collaborator William Gregory on violin: a live drummer, bass player and synth. This works well, on the strength of sublime string solos in songs like 'Deer Stop', to the sexy synth and stomping glam disco beat of 'Strict Machine'. This band is at once the beautiful melodic soundscapes of Felt Mountain, and the new-breed electro-rock'n'roll of Black Cherry. Across the board, their music has an epic style, a grandeur that surpasses the one-hit-wonders of the new electro rock movement.
Nevertheless the music and the act have a remoteness ? it sounds beautiful but you can't touch it. Alison as a performer was not particularly interactive with the audience, maintaining a diva's aloofness. Most comfortable in her electro-cadet dramatics, she seemed less at ease in the gaps between songs, when she was confronted with the audience's raptures...
That said, there were three encores, and the venue had trouble getting a highly satisfied audience to leave the Metro foyer.
(dee j from Vibewire)
- Arriving at The Metro just a little late at around nine thirty, I was expecting to walk into the final stages of the dexterous sounds that are DJ Lorna. Instead, we were greeted to the enchanting setting of the Goldfrapp stage show, with mirrorball-like lights spinning around the stage and providing just enough light so that some aura of mystery still remained. Former Tricky collaborator Alison Goldfrapp, her partner in art school, trip-hop Will Gregory (a multi instrumentalist and film soundtracker), and their four other live members already seemed to be in the first or second song of their set.
Wearing a short black fitted dress, with a matching black hat, sitting atop her freshly straightened hair (her curls are nowhere to be seen tonight), and a matching pair of black knee-high boots are the look of Alison Goldfrapp tonight. As she sang the room fell eerily silent as the audience seemed to hang off every note that passed her lips; and who could blame them with a hauntingly beautiful voice like that. After another two songs, Alison and band left the stage leaving everyone wondering what was going on. After much chanting and applause they were quickly coaxed back on to finish their set.
Next up came the title track of their latest album (Black Cherry) which entranced the crowd and became the highlight of the evening. This was one part of the night where everything seemed to come together perfectly and work all at the same time. The lights were just right, the sound was more perfect than that on the album and an amazing atmosphere was here right in front of us all, making what could easily be the perfect musical moment.
After taking our breath away with another track from their debut album (Felt Mountain), the band left the stage again, in what was becoming a tiresome occurrence. As the set was still really in its middle stage, they had to be coaxed back to the stage again. They were embraced for two more stunning tracks before, you guessed it, leaving the stage again. By this point I didn't bother sticking around to find out whether they came back on. I was satisfied and happy to leave it at that, until next time I get the rare opportunity to experience it all again.
(Semone Maksimovic)
- Goldfrapp mix equal parts Blondie, Portishead, Kraftwerk and that indefinable star quality of petite frontwoman Alison Goldfrapp, who is absolutely the star of this show.
All eyes are on her, dressed in sort of soft-fetish: over-the-knee vinyl boots, a short black dress and a Thunderbirds-style black stewardess's cap. With her incredible vocal range, from velvety whispers to full nightingale histrionics, she can do it all. Tiny and blonde, eyes rimmed in dark make-up, the singer/composer and former fine arts student is a star, but a cold, bright one, distant from the audience until its rapturous applause finally warms her heart. She smiles and says only "You're very nice".
With collaborator Will Gregory, Alison Goldfrapp's 2000 debut, Felt Mountain, was full of opulent textures, heavily treated strings and the noir Dietrichesque melodrama of her lush soprano. This year's Black Cherry took an unexpectedly sexy glam disco turn, moving away from the operatic flourishes to focus on some serious funk grooves.
At the Metro, Goldfrapp essentially alternated between their two (very effective) modes: luxuriant, moody atmospherics and sharper-edged glam funk.
Given the richness of layers in both it worked really well, and by the second bout of her soprano flourishes, the audience was in the palm of Goldfrapp's hands.
She had a full band with her: Gregory (a composer himself) spent much of his time playing a beautiful, heavily treated violin, but there was also live bass and some live drums as well as dense layers of synthesisers and sequenced beats.
If there is a problem with Goldfrapp's sound, it lies here: the dominance of synthesised sound leaves the music feeling a bit mechanistic. The songs are opulent, shiny, beautiful, but somehow a bit icy and lacking in soul. It's a glacial kind of beauty.
They're not a particularly warm band, and there was not much chit-chat or attempt to connect with the audience, who were already converted anyway. All the sublime dynamics and dramatics are electronic - wonderful electric, as Goldfrapp herself sings in the superb Blondie update Strict Machine, and it does work fabulously, in a glitter eyeshadow, bump'n'grind sort of way.
But in producing a sound as distinctive and compelling as this, the band can get away with that.
(Kelsey Munro) |
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