Goldfrapp

[adelenetie]

Brilliant remix!!

 

[mackos]

I've just listened to the whole album and head over heels on love with Voicething. Amazing track, definitely my favourite one! Though I love the whole thing, of course, how could I not

 

[Scott]

^i thought you might it's become my favourite too and what one thinks of when listening to goldfrapp. actually of the poppier stuff i actually have fallen in love with dreaming & hunt.

 

[Ksanochka Vanmra]

My favourite tracks from Head First are Hunt and Voicething. Dunno what they were thinking when they decided to record I Wanna Life though...

 

[Scott]

^hehe...yeah it does seem a bit out of place with the rest. it reminds me too much of that cheesy whitney houston song from the 80's that was endlessly playing....

 

[Ksanochka Vanmra]

I'm Spanish and that song reminds me of gipsies playing a keyboard on the street and making a goat dance. When I first listened to it I was cracking up!

 

[mackos]

From my Goldfrapp e-mail

Here's a selection of some of the UK album reviews that have been coming in...

"An album of classic pop as evidenced by Rocket, Believer, Alive and I Wanna Life." - Mojo

"Dreaming invokes both Discovery-era Daft Punk and late-period Fleetwood Mac, while the multi-tracked vocals and gleeful pianos of the title track evoke a neon-lit 21st-century ABBA." - Q

"Packed with jaw-droppingly perfect pop." - Esquire

"Something of a triumph all round... Songs include: 'Rocket' (amazing), 'Head First' (amazing), 'I Wanna Life' (amazing) and 'Believer' (amazing)." - Popjustice

"Quite unlike anything Goldfrapp have done so far. Five LPs on and not only relevant, but also revitalised." - Time Out

"Their most surprising sound to date. An instant feel good classic." - Daily Express

And from the USA...

"The band has returned full-force to the expansive synth work that made them underground darlings. Absorbing the ethereal atmosphere of Giorgio Moroder's Cat People soundtrack and the skeletal fuzz-bluster of Suicide's 1977 melancholy synth-punk blueprint 'Cheree', Head First has an edge that's softer, warmer and dreamier..." - Rolling Stone

"Head First is the most direct, poppy record singer Alison Goldfrapp and keyboardist-producer Will Gregory have ever made. Jubilant." - Pitchfork

"Sugary, synthlicious songs that hook you on the first listen!" - Perez Hilton

But my personal favourite is this one

"After a deluge of electro divas, queen of synthpop Alison Goldfrapp has returned to reclaim her crown." - Daily Mail

 

[Lily530]

Finally got my full listen of the new album and I AM IN LOVE, as always.

 

[Scott]

I meet Alison Goldfrapp at Soho House the morning after the Brit Awards. She is fresh-faced, wearing a vintage silk shirt with a zebra galloping across it, but I never once see her eyes, as she keeps a pair of classic Ray-Bans perched on her delicate little nose throughout. At 43, she has sparrow-like dimensions and a flurry of blonde curls, but when she roars, she has a delicious negativity that you can almost feel her attempting to reign in. So, did she watch the awards last night? “Absolutely not!” she exclaims. “I am not in the slightest bit interested in watching it or any other awards ceremony. They are all random. That one is about cash, and how much cash you can make, and lots of people sitting around patting themselves on the back for making cash.”

Dismissing the entire music industry in three easy sentences? Just another day at the office for Ms Goldfrapp. With the unusual combination of a convent education set against a bohemian Hampshire upbringing, Goldfrapp was always going to push the boundaries. She famously rounded off her degree show in fine art with a performance that combined yodelling with milking a cow. A spell as a collaborator with Bristol’s favourite dystopian, Tricky, and guest spots with the balding rave nerds Orbital were her greatest musical accomplishments of the 1990s. But then she hooked up with her long-term collaborator in Goldfrapp (also the name of her band), Will Gregory. She says that for the entire writing process behind making a record, it is just the two of them in the studio. No engineer. No tea boy. “We make our own bloody tea, thank you very much.”

The band were then signed by Mute Records’ Daniel Miller (“One of the only men in the industry whose opinion you actually want to hear. The rest you want as far away as possible from what you do”) and, owing to the dream-like, filmic texture of their first record, Felt Mountain, Goldfrapp were mistakenly dumped in the then voguish chillout camp. Perhaps marked by this early cataloguing carelessness, one of Alison Goldfrapp’s pet hates is piped music. When she toured her most recent album, she says she would look in the lobbies of hotels for the wires to the sound systems, because she wanted to cut them.

Throughout the course of their records, they have engaged with vintage European electronics, glam-rock, pastoral acoustics and 3am mirrorball classics, without ever losing the central flavour of what it is to be Goldfrapp — which is, eminently danceable, sexually brooding pop of the highest order: the kind Madonna would probably make if she could just stop being so high-achieving.

So, after a decade in the record industry, it seems musical times are in danger of catching up with Goldfrapp. There are mini-Frapps everywhere, standing moodily by their synthesizers in some distinct, eye-catching plumage. From the Madonna-ish steel of Gaga through the brazenly retro La Roux to the almost “Tonight, Matthew…” tribute acts Little Boots and Ellie Goulding, Alison Goldfrapp’s accidental spawn have cut a swathe right across culture.

One cannot help but wonder if she would rather be operating on a more even playing field in the record industry, 20 years younger. “No. I feel for all the new young ladies that are around at the moment. They are probably having their arses worked off because they’re young and hungry. I’m sure that record companies think of them as more malleable, and I think that’s really tough for them. That stuff really takes its toll on you, very quickly. You can’t be creative when you’re being shoved around from pillar to post all over the planet, and then, when things stop, just be expected to turn out another album. You learn your tolerance levels of how much stuff you can and can’t do with age. It is a lesson you have to learn.”

Goldfrapp’s fifth record, a concise nine-song set by the name of Head First, opens with a suite of three tracks that are the most transparently pop of her career. It feels as if she has turned in her straightest pop record, ironically at a time when she is at her least straight. “Who started off straight? I didn’t start off straight. That’s someone else’s perception, not mine.” She is now going out with the film editor Lisa Gunning, but looks aghast when I ask if she is now a lesbian.

“What? Am I saying that? I feel like I’m in an amateur therapy session. No, I am not. I think of everything as being about a person and a relationship, and I am in a wonderful relationship with a wonderful person. It just happens to be with a lady. I’ve had some wonderful relationships with men, too. I mean, I’ve had some **** ones — haven’t we all? But no, it’s a relationship with a person and that’s how I see my sexuality. It’s something I’ve thought about for a long time and it concurs with my philosophy on life and sexuality. I don’t think it can or should be pigeonholed. I’ve thought about this since I was a teenager. I’ve always found it claustrophobic to think about having to put things into categories like that. My sexuality is the same as my music and my life. Why does it need a label?”

Unlike music, surely there is a political impulse behind homosexuality, though, whe ther you like it or not. “Of course, and I appreciate that. Maybe I’m lucky in that I haven’t had to face it as much as someone who feels that they are definitely in one camp. Maybe that’s the difference.”

Of course, the point with Alison Goldfrapp is that she doesn’t need to be 20 years younger to compete with the peers she accidentally gave voice to. There is always something of the impetuous teen about her. She looks utterly delighted when I note that the lyrics of Head First have the openness of a teenager in love. “I had my faith restored in youth and rebellion quite recently, actually,” she says, “with that story about the squat party in Mayfair. I just thought, we used to do that **** all the time. I was quite relieved by it in a way. Obviously, you don’t want people to get hurt or messed up, but I loved the fact that they were just having a party. And that they had ruined Park Lane. I mean, brilliant, no? It made me laugh. I found it almost heart-warming. I got quite nostalgic for a moment.”

*timesonline.co.uk

okay am i the only one loving this?! confirms my earlier query to the rumour that was going round. but i think it's effing cool.

 

[Scott]

Alison Goldfrapp Doesn't Listen to Music During Sex
Posted on Mar 17th 2010 3:00PM by Jillian MapesComment (1)

When you're as internationally popular as British electro-pop duo Goldfrapp, you've fielded the same five or so questions from reporters over and over again. As Alison Goldfrapp herself says last month in a blog on the band's site, "Talking about yourself constantly is such a weird thing to do. Although 98 percent of the journalists have been very nice and enthusiastic with no major weirdos."

But there's still that pesky two percent, and Alison is happy to share with Spinner some of the strange questions she's recently been asked, as she and bandmate Will Gregory promote the upcoming Goldfrapp album 'Head First,' out March 23 on Mute Records.

"I got asked by an Australian guy if I had sex to my own music," Goldfrapp tells Spinner. "I said no, just so you know my response. In fact, I don't like having sex to music -- that's definitely a no-no. It kind of makes me sick."

Sexual questions are one thing, but insulting questions are in a category of their own. Needless to say, Alison was a bit peeved when one interviewer flat-out called her old. "Someone asked me the other day: 'So, Lady Gaga is very young, and you are very old. How do you still find the passion to make music?' And I thought, well, 'OK, I'll fake this one.' So yes, people can be quite blunt," Goldfrapp says.

Additionally, Goldfrapp tells Spinner she's noticed a difference between the British music press and their American counterparts. "I think Europeans can be quite rude," she says. "There's definitely a difference between British and American press, but I can't quite put my finger on what it is, except to say that the Brits and the Europeans really are a bit ruder, which can be good and bad."

spinner.com

lovely leblon image supporting article...reminds me of branquinho.

egads,i wish i could smack the person who made this comment to her. not only for calling her old which is terribly degrading and stupid and then to use gaga in correlation with her is pretty insulting too. i mean,goldfrapp is on a completely different plain than gaga...and i will not go into detail but all i can say at least goldfrapp can actually make music and let their music speak for them.

 

[diorelle]

Just listened to the whole album. Voicethinking and Rocket are probably the best imo.
Still undecided about the rest of it though.

 

[OhSoRetro3]

the new album is so super
i love the new sound they have for it. 'i wanna life' and 'rocket' are the best :')

 

[mackos]

okay am i the only one loving this?!

You certainly are not, my love for this woman has grown even more after reading that.

 

[Scott]

it's really interesting to read that too because her feelings kind of parallel similar philosophies of siouxsie sioux and björk.

i agree with her though. not just being labelled itself but people often want to define a person by it. like everything one does or is about,revolves around this one aspect of a person as if they have no personalities.

 

[Annu]

Alive singlecover

popjustice.com

 

[Annu]

She is cover on Nylon Mexico.

nylon mexico twitter via kokurox #1

 

[Scott]

i just had to post these as i was thinking and watching,even though i enjoy the stuff they're doing it's a bit bittersweet when one listens to pieces like these. to think this was once the kind of music they produced it makes me a bit sad. just the unabashed lushness and intensity...the kind of music that makes the hairs on one's neck stand rigid...

 

[diorelle]

Ugh I loved Felt Mountain so much! Lovely Head is one of my all time favorites. I kind of miss their Black Cherry, Supernature days but if they didn't reinvent themselves with every album they would be boring.
I gave Head First another listen and I really liked it the second time around.

 

[Scott]

^it would be interesting if they had some sort of counterpart to their more accessible material. they always talk about how much they would love to some sort of film score or acoustic material...they could do a sort of session(similar to a chamber style) album and include many of the more orchestrated elements of FM. it seems the further they go along they seem to have lost touch of these kinds of productions.

 

[gius]

I haven't heard of those two songs before.. :-O What album are they from? Are there more out there...
I miss the days before too, I found the move to Black Cherry and onwards a bit too sharp --and I was trying to find an article if they mentioned a reason for it. I remember reading about wanting something that was more fitting for a performance/at a concert show... Just makes me wonder what they were doing before Felt Mountain, if separately. Maybe Will was making music closer to that

Anyway recently I had to find the Man with No Name Trilogy and starting to watch it this week ^^It's really great to listen to them together! Thanks so much for posting the two songs, Scott!♥