Music is, as far as I'm concerned, the most utterly subjective experience we can purchase in the commercial world. It runs deep within us, connected mostly to our adolescence, where the importance of music cannot be underestimated. When we are teenagers, music "understands" us, and so intoxicated do we become with the perceived empathy of those who seem to sing solely to us, no other entertainer or public figure is subject to as much obsession and devotion. When we're older, this tends to fade, of course. We become more objective, less obsessed, and less prone to the beauty of art and creation. We grow up, in other words. But, every now and then, we have a moment in time - a private moment of self-indulgence, vicariously facilitated by someone we don't even know - and through another's words and sounds, we rejoice in a part of ourselves. It doesn't happen very often for me, I must confess; but, many years ago, I found a record that "spoke to me", and I fell in a love that was decidedly more about myself than it was the woman responsible for this record. It was the critically acclaimed debut from British outfit, Goldfrapp, Felt Mountain. I am eternally grateful. However, years later, with their fourth studio album, Seventh Tree (released in February), the love affair is fading.
I loved Felt Mountain for the sheer noir of it all. As a David Lynch fan (a man who has also given me moments of such creative empathy), it was something as shallow as the album artwork that made me listen to it. "Wow, that's tres Lynch," I remarked of Goldfrapp's image (without having heard any of the actual music). Luckily for me, the music turned out to be every bit as noir as the asthetic had promised. Felt Mountain was a place where the bruises left by damaged love affairs were beautiful in the truth at the heart of them, and where knowledge was inseparable to sorrow. It was a solitude that was not simply a literal loneliness, but a conceptual one. When Alison Goldfrapp sang, "I'm not supposed to feel..." it felt as if only I could truly understand the paradox at the heart of this. And when she announced; "I'm wired to the world - that's how I know everything. I'm superbrain... that's how they made me", I sighed with the power of my rather subjective connection. It would seem a most arrogant line to most, but I knew - I knew, I tell you - what that line really meant, as yet another cruel paradox of the very anguish that lies beneath all those who have been, perhaps not through an autonomous narrative, privy to a kind of perception that has left them as arguably dysfunctional, as it has, capable. I must have listened to that song, Utopia, about eight times a day. It never lost its brilliance. It understood me, every time.
As to whether I really understood Alison Goldfrapp, or not, who could say? Only Alison Goldfrapp, I suppose, and I doubt I'll ever have her clarify it for me. She could have meant something completely different to my perception of it. She could be a right twat, for all I know; her lyrics could be more pretentious, than perceptive. We project upon the music - sometimes, we get it right, and sometimes, we get it wrong - but the truth, as far as I'm concerned, is irrelevant. Ever found out you were singing the wrong lines to a song you love, and actually feel disappointed by the correct lyrics? There's something priceless in this phenomenon, for me - Freud would have a field day with it. We hear an ambiguous sounding lyric, and we naturally turn it into something. But mixed up in the phonetics is something entirely meaningful. We convert those lyrics to what we need them to be, with whatever fits in our own mindset. When we find out we were wrong, sometimes the meaning is changed, and our connection to the music is undermined. I say, don't worry about it. If it's something entirely different to you, keep singing whatever that was. It's your right. I had a friend who was quite devastated to hear that the chorus of Madonna's Ray Of Light was "I feel like I just got home." He was a young gay boy who had just discovered his sexuality (as so many of them do, after all) in the tacky nightclubs of Oxford Street, and he didn't feel like he just got home. He felt like a disco ball. Just got home... disco ball... you can see the mild similarities, but this was clearly a case of projection! Everybody laughed at him, and he was promptly expected to change his understanding to suit the reality. But, later, I would see him dancing in a bar to the song, singing loudly beneath the fragmented light of the dancefloor; "And I feel like a disco ball!" I thought that was pretty cool.
So, rest assured, nothing could take Felt Mountain away from me - not even the people who made it. But those people (who are really a duo - Alison Goldfrapp and her co-writer, Will) failed to provide me another moment of such connection, when they suddenly changed direction, and headed into electronica with their following albums, Black Cherry and Supernature. It became clear what Goldfrapp was to "be" - like Bowie and Madonna, Goldfrapp is a concept act. Gone, was the drama of slinky strings and dark, deep piano. Gone, were the lyrics that were layered with such a deliciously twisted depth. It was disappointing, admittedly; but I had been, coincidentally, foremost a connoisseur of electronica for the past eight years, and for what it was worth, the postmodern remodelling of glam rock with dirty tech was actually pretty cool. I quietly lamented the absence of noir (in two very un-Lynchian records!), but I was still a fan.
Still, Supernature did begin to test me ("I want to ride a white horse," said Alison - to which, I thought, "Well, you've clearly been riding something white"), as the band hit new heights of electronic shallowness. It sounded all very cool, but it didn't actually mean very much. The woman who once sang those beautiful words I loved so much, was now singing lines that could come out of Kylie Minogue's mouth and not at all seem odd. But, alas, Supernature found itself on my playlist, and I tip my hat to quite a few moments of it. I even gave a remix of "Ride a White Horse" to a DJ I'm friends with, and happily boogied along, as it rang over the dancefloor at Home nightclub.
To be honest, I presumed the evolution of Goldfrapp to be symptomatic of something we see in performers and artists, all the time. The first albums are always stronger, because they are creations that come from a very different reality - they're the raw yearnings, dreams and sounds of an artist who has not yet made it. Success is always inevitably a shallow experience, for most - it turns most artists into morons, as the concerns that turned into the art that made them famous, ironically disappear because this is what it made them... famous. Alison Goldfrapp, on Felt Mountain, was a pretty gloomy girl - but, post-fame, entering the VIP spotlight, and the world of awards shows, TV appearances and ego-stroking magazine articles (and, yes, money), things - understandably, in so many ways - seemed to change. When I heard that the duo's new album was to finally give disco-chic the flick, I wondered if the bubble had finally burst; perhaps some realisation that fame did not resolve everything, or, yes, perhaps the coke was starting to lose its high. Though it sounds vaguely cruel, I was rather happy at this thought, and have been waiting patiently, for the last couple of months, for someone to leak the work online. That happened, a couple of weeks ago, and I have now arrived in Goldfrapp's latest world, Seventh Tree. Gone is the disco-chic, yes. But don't buy your ticket to return to Felt Mountain - you're not reallly going anywhere near it, with this one.
Instead, get ready for (and I'm not joking) the latest Goldfrapp concept album, where simplicity and naivety sail in on Her Majesty's fleet, and where all the merry Britanians drink pints, round the totem pole. "Ar, Maggie Mc' Craig, you're a feisty one, arrrrrrrr...." - that sort of thing. Depth - or something seemingly trying very hard to resemble depth - comes only at dusk, when Maggie Mc' Craig seems to wander off to roam the rolling, wild moors, after eating the mushrooms she probably shouldn't have. Original? I guess so (although, Australia's Augie March have already ventured into similar territory with their "sea shanty" moments, and American Indie band, Midlake, trod very similar conceptual ground with their American settler theme on The Trials of Van Occupanther). But, sadly, it also pushes the line of the contrived, coming across as simply too affected, and for all its conceptual audacity, actually has very little to say, or - more importantly - feel. Alison has already instructed us that the feeling is "joy" (the moment, I first thought, "Uh-oh, me thinks the music journalists who are declaring a return to Felt Mountain have it very wrong"); but I've nothing against joyous music (I've nothing against joy!), and this just doesn't seem to capture it. Joy is still deep, for me - Seventh Tree doesn't set foot anywhere near my kind of joy.
And, yes, perhaps it's just about "my" kind of joy. Although, I still put forward that the contrived aspect of the "concept" is partly what kills it; perhaps, my mindset is one that simply cannot connect to the world of Britania (I'm more akin to the decidedly more Eastern European feel of Felt Mountain - still a concept, perhaps, but one that had me totally convinced). But, ultimately, I've no right to tell you this is an awful album you shouldn't listen to. Somebody who might think Felt Mountain is a pile of rubbish, could easily find their connection in Seventh Tree (fans of Wuthering Heights, maybe?). All I can really do is offer the context, so that if you connected to Goldfrapp for similar reasons as to me, you might know not to hold your breath with this one. I know I held mine - something that made the fifty minutes it took to roam the fields of ye old Britain, all the more deflating ("What the fuck is this?" I think I uttered, with a pained expression, about five times, during its course). I have a feeling there's going to be many more, out there, who do the same. And for those who jumped on the Goldfrapp train (pardon the pun) post Felt Mountain, I imagine they'll be even more disappointed (what the club kids who snorted lines to "White Horse" are going to take from this, is anyone's guess - not much, surely). Many of the write ups already out there have mentioned Goldfrapp's increasing desire to cater to a pop market (perhaps, an explanation to the album's "simplicity" being a catering to a simpler, bigger audience). I don't agree, I must say; I think this album will be very difficult, commercially - in the mainstream, or even in alternative scenes - and I don't really foresee a huge market for it. The Goldfrapp fans will turn off it, in droves, and those who could become new fans on the basis of Seventh Tree, probably won't give it a chance. Goldfrapp have enjoyed moments of both critical acclaim and commercial success, along a seven year road. I have a feeling they could very well be about to hit a pot hole.
For fans of the band's past, Felt Mountain admirers should at least download (and I say that, alluding to itunes, without necessarily advocating anything illegal) Monster Love, which, although undermined by the chorus, is as gently sorrowful (with a beautiful sense of sentimentality) as one would expect of Goldfrapp. For those who enjoyed the dirtier world of Black Cherry, check out Cologne Cerrone Houdini, a track that actually sounds completely at odds with the rest of the album, in a moment more inspired by smutty french disco than by King Lear's castle. For groovers who could only get their head around Supernature, I can't for the life of me think of a single moment on this album you'll enjoy; perhaps, you should keep an eye out, instead, for the remixes (with Goldfrapp's cool status amongst the electronic production world, I'm sure there'll be many more putting their names to remodeling this album).
The only other track worth noting is the opener, Clowns (for the first moments of this record, at least, I thought something wonderful might very well lay ahead for me), where Alison trips the medieval light fantastic, and mistakes herself for Kate Bush. It's an unquestionably stylised arrival, but this one qualifies as a moment of that unmistakable Goldfrapp brilliance (again, closer to the band's origins, than when the album explodes into tracks like Happiness, which brings some 60's English pop into the Britania thing and really sinks this album's fleet). But, even as this solid opening number came to a close (the birds, quite literally, beginning to chirp), the question presented itself; "But, will there be wolves in these moors?"
The answer is "no." They're gone. I'm shelving Seventh Tree, and resuming my anticipation for their return - even though I've a sneaking suspicion they never will. This one's super British, and wired to a world I simply have no time for. That, I suppose, is how they made it.
