Goldfrapp

[tifa]

i hate ooh la la. worst thing ever.
bring back the sound scapes of felt mountain please goldfrapp you can't beat lovely head..

 

[Scott]

^i agree with you wholeheartedly. however,i don't necessarily hate it,per se,but it just sounds much too watered down for such an idiosyncratic band. and i miss those soundscapes,as well. i was honestly quite sad about that album when i finally heard it....i felt like they kind of sold out in a way...and now they're doing all these banal tv adverts in the States and they worked with Target for their Holiday campaign. it just doesn't sound like the Goldfrapp--whose originality could not be compared with anybody-- I fell madly in love with.

maybe the whole superficial glamour aspects of working in music today took hold of them too much? i just hope that the stuff they're working on now is going to be different.

 

[Scott]

[FONT=arial,helvetica,sans-serif]She's the most exciting thing in British pop, our answer to Kylie and Madonna. But what makes Alison Goldfrapp tick, and what goes on behind the scenes of her thrilling live shows? Amy Raphael joined her and the band on tour[/FONT]

[FONT=Geneva,Arial,sans-serif] Sunday October 16, 2005
The Observer

[/FONT] She could be anyone. A tiny figure standing at the edge of the dressing room, lingering in the doorway as though getting ready for an easy escape. Blonde curls tamed, pulled back off her face. The black uniform - tight but unrevealing top, skinny jeans, ballet pumps - adding to her anonymity. Inside the hot, airless room, there is easy laughter, warm wine and a discarded pair of white platform boots. Only the eyes give a hint of who she is, framed by fake lashes and still sparkling with glitter.


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Alison Goldfrapp is never recognised off stage. Which is extraordinary, because her band, Goldfrapp , are one of the most compelling and engaging Britain has produced in a long time. Having built a loyal following of critics and fans since their 2000 debut, their third album, Supernature , has seduced vast numbers of the record-buying public since its release in August.But it's for their live gigs that the band are most celebrated, with showgirls, weird costumes and an overtly sexual Goldfrapp teasing delighted audiences into a frenzy. In a pop climate that isn't great for women just now - too many anodyne 'babes' and not enough eccentric, engaging women - Alison Goldfrapp is mysterious, dark and a little dangerous. A perfect pop star.
On stage at the Brighton Drome tonight, she wore a black catsuit, pleated pink cape and the highest gold platform boots. With two steel fans blowing her curls into a blonde halo, she was mesmerising. Against a soundscape of hard electro disco, her voice soared to operatic heights. Occasionally, she managed to move around in the boots, but mostly she allowed the fans to frame her for songs like the wittingly sexual, druggy 'Slide in', the brazen 'I'm like a dog to get you/ I want it up and on' of 'Number 1'.
Once she leaves the stage, however, she becomes lost in the crowd. The contrast between the whip-cracking performer and the shy person, the public sex goddess and the private shrinking violet, is extraordinary - and completely unexpected. Here in Brighton, after the first gig of their biggest British tour to date, the improbably tall transvestites with blond, curly wigs and attitude who are milling about backstage look more like the Alison Goldfrapp I was expecting.
In the dressing room after the show, she looks beat. She says she sent a car to pick up her mother, who is in a wheelchair, so that she could see the first show. 'She couldn't hear what I was singing,' Goldfrapp mumbles, frowning. Given that her mother is a devout Christian and her youngest child sings lyrics such as 'Put your dirty angel face between my legs and knicker lace' ('Twist', from their second, 2003 album Black Cherry ), that may be no bad thing.
'She likes coming to see me,' she continues, with a flicker of a smile. 'But I think she likes looking at all the people more than anything... it used to be weird knowing she was there, but not any more. Thank God.'
I tell Goldfrapp how, in the ladies' loos, I overheard a group of excited lesbians debating whether their idol might be gay. She smiles and gives a deep, dirty laugh suddenly, there is a glimpse of the sexy diva who earlier took to the stage. 'Yeah, there were quite of lot of lesbians at the warm-up show in Bristol last night, too.' Then the secretive woman who says little about her love life, who talks only of sharing her Bath home with a cat and an evening bottle of wine, is gone.
LONDON, THURSDAY 6 OCTOBER
The London gig is a triumph. Brixton Academy is a seething mass of loved-up fans. The show proves that the comparisons with Kylie Minogue and Madonna, which appear regularly in reviews, are just lazy. Although occasionally a little awkward on stage - those bloody platforms - Alison is neither as mannered as Kylie nor as glossy and urbane as Madonna. Like a disco version of Polly Harvey, the free-spirited provocatrice of British rock, she is quite simply the most exciting female performer around.
The after-show party, held upstairs at the Academy, is unpleasantly crowded. Supernature , its title borrowed from Cerrone's disco anthem, is the album of the moment, sounding both knowingly retro, with its references to Marc Bolan, Kate Bush, Gary Numan and Soft Cell, and crunchingly modern. This, it seems, is the show at which everyone wants to be seen. Among the beered-up industry crowd are some familiar faces: actor Michael Sheen Kelly Osbourne looking oddly demure.
Goldfrapp hovers by the door. She looks uncertain. Strangers approach, offer business cards, shout above the pulsating Seventies disco in her ear. She smiles sweetly but looks completely overwhelmed. Finally, an old girlfriend finds her and they find a seat in a corner and start talking and laughing. She relaxes at last.
LEEDS, MONDAY 10 OCTOBER
The day before their Leeds show, Goldfrapp meets me for lunch wearing a head scarf, black skinny jeans and T-shirt, green ballet pumps, Gucci sunglasses and a grimace. The sunglasses stay on during the two-hour lunch the grimace comes and goes. But I like her, despite the grumpiness. 'I feel pretty ropey. Just knackered,' she says, slumping in her chair. 'Where's Will?'
She dislikes doing interviews alone, preferring to do them with Will Gregory, Goldfrapp 's co-founder and invisible man (although he writes with her, the studio wizard hasn't appeared on stage since the first tour back in 1999?).
Waiting for Gregory, we talk about Goldfrapp 's forthcoming European tour as the somewhat unlikely support act for Coldplay ( Goldfrapp 's breathy electro sound is miles removed from the singalong emotion of Coldplay). 'They invited us. I'm actually quite jealous of Chris Martin's voice it's wonderful,' she says, in her southern English drawl. 'And he doesn't drink or smoke and goes to bed early. I am just hoping they've got great catering. Some healthy food. We don't have such luxuries. People seem to think we're really rich and have huge budgets now but it's just not true...'
She orders a bottle of still mineral water. I read somewhere that she was anaemic, but she says not. 'I have strange blood sugar levels. I get very odd if I don't eat. I either want to hit someone, cry or fall asleep. I carry my own food around on tour, I permanently have carrier bags full of cereal and bananas. It all sounds a bit weird, doesn't it?'
Although she loves performing, Goldfrapp sometimes struggles with touring. 'I get cabin fever. I really miss fresh air and going for walks. I miss routine, too I'm a bit of a routine freak.'
After leaving the family home in rural Hampshire at 17 and moving to London, then Bristol and now Bath - taking in art school and doing backing vocals for Orbital and Tricky ??along the way - Goldfrapp says she is no longer sure where home is. 'I live on the edge of Bath. It's really lovely but its very loveliness freaks me out a bit. It's peaceful, a great antidote to the craziness of being on tour, but sometimes I feel as though I've retired. And when I come home off tour, my house - well, it's more a cottage - is cold and empty. f*ck. I don't know what home is. I'm a bit confused by the concept.' A wry smile. 'I crave a home. I imagine big fires and cats and people laughing. The smell of freshly baked bread. And actually... it's not like that at all.'
Will Gregory arrives he is tall, well-spoken, older (neither will specify an age Goldfrapp always says, frustratingly, that she's in her 'thirties' Gregory plumps for the equally imprecise 'forties'). Goldfrapp tells Gregory that Elle magazine wants to photograph her at home. She giggles. 'They obviously think it's a Gigi boudoir and it's a f*cking tip!'
WE TALK ABOUT being on tour, finding ways to pass the time and to relax after the intensity of performing. If there's a pool, Goldfrapp will go for a swim. She might do some knitting. Gregory pulls a face. 'When we were making Supernature in a cottage in Somerset, we'd lay down a huge pop track and then Alison would do a bit more knitting.' Occasionally, she goes shopping, but, although she creates outfits for herself, her band and the dancing girls who appear with her on stage with mirrored horses' heads and tails, she is not 'into fashion'. 'I find shopping too stressful. I get hot and flustered and irritated and feel sick after I've bought something.'
Goldfrapp and Gregory both roll cigarettes. 'No more smoking that's it,' she announces. I ask what it feels like to be in the band of the moment. 'Oh sh*t,' says Goldfrapp . Then she composes herself. 'When I was working with Tricky, I felt as though I lost myself. I didn't enjoy singing someone else's song. Before I met Will, there were always rules about what you could and couldn't do in a band, what was cool and what wasn't. Bloody hell... so boring. The whole point of music is that you can bloody well do anything.'
Will takes up the theme. 'We did have two rules in the beginning: no samples, no guitars. We were trying to invent our palette of sounds. Putting electronic and classical instruments together. We decided to keep everything as fantastical as possible in the studio, not to worry about what the implications might be for playing live. I trust Will, so I let my imagination run riot in the studio the birthing of ideas is so exciting. Then there's the whole excitement of having to make it work on stage.'
Suddenly, she is agitated. 'sh*t. What time is it? I've got to go bloody shopping. I have to go buy shampoo for my matted, gunky hair, and I've run out of pants.' I wonder whether, on these rare occasions when she goes shopping, she attracts groupies.
'No! I'd like to see some. I'd like to enjoy the whole groupie thing.' Gregory smiles: 'Men are always shouting things at you last night, it was, "What are you doing later?"' Goldfrapp laughs and, despite the sunglasses, I see a mischievous glint in her eye. 'I want groupies! I suppose you have to order them?' The sexiest women in pop pauses and looks at her band- mate. 'Maybe we should try it one night, but we'd probably be hugely disappointed.'

it's an older article but i think it serves insight into her rather timid(off stage she really is,i've heard countlessly) personality.

*guardian.co.uk

 

[Scott]

i did not know she smoked! i always thought she had thing against that because she's had many rows with people who do that during their performances.

 

[Scott]

i found some pics of alison thanks to the french goldfrapp fan site....at an appearance for 'all tomorrow's pictures' art/photography event in london.

looking quite the weimar/art deco queen with her trompe l'oeil sequined top....and her hair.....quite reminiscent of the felt mountain days.. lovely!!

goldfrapp.free.fr

 

[mackos]

I LOVE, LOVE, and one more time LOVE Goldfrapp!

Seriously, it's my favourite band EVER, they're songs are just divine, not to mention Alison's style and wonderful ideas!

 

[Fabulyss]

I'm embarassed to admit I've only recently discovered Goldfrapp and I can't help but noticing her image is similar to Madonna's (I've seen her in black equestrian a la Madonna's W photoshoot, and the Guy Bourdin-esque photoshoots)...I want an honest answer here, who copies who?

For the record, I consider Goldfrapp's music to be far superior.

 

[Scott]

in some instances i think it's just a shared(or alison's case an inate passion)love of certain things. alison-being a true country girl that she is-has been riding and loving horses since she was very young. honestly,i think madge only did that shoot and rides only to play up to this fake image that she's now british and she,as she always does,is so desperate for people to love her. but as for the 40's stuff.....alison's been doing that since the partly Weimar-inspired Felt Mountain debut and she says she adores Dietrich and all those styles. and this whole disco/glam rock stuff i really believe madge(whose made it known that Goldfrapp has inspired her)took alot of that look from her in recent years. but the one distinction,i can tell you quite honestly,is that alison always says her looks(and their band too since they dress up quite alot as well) are always more juxtoposed with the visual side of their music rather than just a mere fashion statement(like madge). off stage she's always in jeans or some kind military jacket and her hair goes back to it's wild,unkept curly state...really casual. as she says in the article i posted,she doesn't really do fashion and that she's not really into it that much.

as far as the whole 'image' thing...they don't do that. it's merely a marketing tool for mainstream people...and for them it's about conjuring up poetical,nature-laden,fantastical imagery. and btw,it's not just her that makes up the band....it's she and her composer partner Will Gregory that make up Goldfrapp.....just so you know since you just got into them.

 

[Scott]

to add,alison has expressed some disdain for madge and the fact that she's always so reliant on other people to do her music. basically calling her unoriginal. so one could venture to say madge could be the farthest thing from alison's mind.

 

[Scott]

here's that article-

http://www.thefashionspot.com/forums/f63/alison-goldfrapp-blasts-madonna-42901.html

 

[Fabulyss]

Wow, thank you so much Scott; karma-worthy indeed. I really appreciate all of the info and thanks for the link...good on Alison for making that statement

 

[mademoiselle_]

New album coming!!

February 25

 

[mackos]

^Yesss, I can't wait!

 

[strawberry daiquiri]

cherrycoloured.com


Seventh Tree
01 Clowns
02 Little Bird
03 Happiness
04 Road to Somewhere
05 Eat Yourself
06 Some People
07 A&E
08 Cologne Cerrone Houdini
09 Caravan Girl
10 Monster Love

I love the cover...

cdwow.ie

 

[mackos]

haha, I remember they wrote in the newsletter: Don't be scared of Clowns, you'll surely like it!

I can't wait for some preview tracks!

 

[Scott]

and they say it's a combination of renaissance faire(folk),horror and a bit of california sunshine.

honestly,i think the change in direction is perfect because now everybody has tediously copied them after black cherry and supernature....kylie's now stealing their sound with her new one,madonna did the disco thing and apparently is doing something similar to them again with her upcoming LP so i think it's great they're moving on. it really started to get redundant.

is that really going to be the cover strawberry? as much as i adore that image,i would hope they did another really creative art direction like on felt mountain and black cherry. i thought these first images were just publicity shots.

 

[strawberry daiquiri]

I saw that under 'seventh tree' on a few websites that are pre-selling it, so I assumed it was. But yeah you're probably right since amazon still has no image...

 

[Salvatore]

I can't wait for this. Every review I've seen of "A&E" says that it is simply amazing!

 

[XxpinktinksxX]

Ooh a new Goldfrapp album i'm soo excited

 

[Scott]

have they released a preview of A&E yet? i wonder if that loop they were playing the last months is the same?