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Goldfrapp
Allison Goldfrapp's gymnastic voice -- from the dusky low tones to her eerie siren's trill -- first appeared on Tricky's debut album Maxinquaye. More specifically, that is, as the Liz Fraiser-ish scat/glossolalia on the lush and sexy track "Pumpkin." After singing with Tricky for a few years, Ms. Goldfrapp hooked up with long-time collaborator Will Gregory, and the two created the eponymous project Goldfrapp -- drawing from influences as diverse as Ennio Morricone, glam rock, and 70's dance music, which is a polite way of saying disco.
That dichotomy of influences is reflected in Goldfrapp's releases to date: Felt Mountain (2000) was ethereal, trippy pop -- as if Morricone were a little girl lost in a forest and talking in creepy whistles and a throat full of strings to the fairies she found there; sophomore effort Black Cherry (2003) was full of glammy and razor-sharp tunes that, in retrospect, cut along the bleeding edge of the electroclash and dance punk moments.
Supernature (2005), Goldfrapp's most recent album, which has yet to be released in the US, is a fascinating combination of the work on the first two albums -- sinewy and sensuous and danceable all at the same time. And the chamelon-like Ms. Goldfrapp has moved out from behind the giant shadows of those diminutive twin goddesses of dance pop: Madonna and Kylie, and into a territory all her own -- snatching up the bits of arch-browed Joan Crawford posturing that was too bizzare for Madge, taking girlish sexiness to a darker place that Kylie, for all her self-conciousness, has never dared go. Aggressive, weird, and beautiful -- this is the dance music of the future. So get up and shake it already.
Goldfrapp - Lovely Head
Goldfrapp - Strict Machine (Single Mix)
Goldfrapp - Slide In
Goldfrapp's offical site. Buy Felt Mountain, Black Candy, and the single for "Number One," the first single off Supernature (which will be released domestically in March) at Amazon and the iTunes Music Store.
Shadows tags: goldfrapp.
Posted by Little Miss Rock'n'Roll at 01.14.06 at 2:47 AM
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