GOLDFRAPP (support: Tim Hutton)
Upstairs at the Social, Nottingham 20.2.01

(review by Jon Horne 2001)

© Touch Nottingham (internet magazine and What's On guide)

I have to say, I was expecting something a little different. Goldfrapp's 'Felt Mountain' LP is a delicate thing - fragile melodies over filmic strings, gentle beats, and washes of electronica - somewhere between the Cocteau Twins and Francoise Hardy. The accompanying visuals: chocolate-box glacial views, Alison Goldfrapp in sepia, with pale make-up and heavy mascara like a 1920s German film star - along with recent publicity photos of her playing piano in her knickers - push the theme of delicacy to its limits, and hide her collaborator, Will Gregory, from sight. So I was expecting something decidedly wispy, with Goldfrapp hidden behind her curls, mumbling, and Gregory cowering at the back of the stage, pushing the start/stop button of a DAT machine. I wasn't expecting a four-piece band, playing muscular, but still atmospheric instrumentals before the singer showed her face. When she did arrive on-stage, wearing a headscarf and an expression that was a mixture of defiance and terror, the effect was mesmerising. Volume and the ambience of a crowded room take away the fragility of the tunes. Curious high-pitched counter-melodies which seem, on record, to be coming from a synthesiser or a treated guitar, turn out to be Goldfrapp singing through an effects box, or in harmony with a violin (the dominant lead instrument throughout).

This was a real performance. Although the group are static, and the room is too full for anyone to dance, there is no shoegazing going on. Minutes into the show, it is plain that there is something special happening. The group themselves are quite aware of this: the songs are arranged with the precision of show music, but in the spirit of pure pop (an old concept which some of you will understand). The singing is all yearning and confusion, while never descending into showy histrionics.

The words are unintelligible, which was probably a good thing. A fellow Touch scribe, reading the lyrics from the inner sleeve of 'Felt Mountain', said: "This woman's got a thing about dogs." Fair comment, although baboons also get a mention, as do deer, who "stop bottle in a shell, shoot a thousand stars over me." Well, we all know that feeling. This is all in the tradition of the Cocteau Twins and Tim Buckley, where sound and emotion count for more than whether or not a song makes sense.

Surrounding the remarkable singing, Will Gregory spends most of his time treating the contributions of the other players, Eno fashion. The result has the ambience of dub, soothing or disturbing according to context.

I can't recall a set of slow songs sounding quite so exciting.

Also excellent was Tim Hutton, who went on first, accompanied by a drummer who doubled up on synthesiser hooks and triggers. Hutton has not the slightest clue about projecting himself on-stage. He bumbles around - picking up instruments and deciding on spec which one to play - and has little in the way of charisma - even of the shy, complex kind. But he sings wonderfully well, mixing his own lyrics with adaptations of standards (within the same song). Each tune ends with a verse of understated trumpet. Clearly he wants to be Chet Baker, but as himself, he deserves to be heard by a wide audience.

Goldfrapp encored with a Tricky-ish trip-hop take on Olivia Newton-John's 'Let's Get Physical', transforming the song from a spangly 80s monstrosity into a piece of music where the lust of the lyric could be taken at face value. If a group can do that, then there are no bounds to their abilities or their self-confidence. Where Tim Hutton is a great singer in the making, who uses jazz as a means towards finding his own voice, Goldfrapp are fully-formed, with an attitude that springs directly from jazz and punk, but whose music owes little to either. It was a great night.



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Goldfrapp are currently on a European tour. Tour dates.
Their new single comes out this week: 'Human' (includes an alleged mariachi remix by Calexico)

Tim Hutton's single, 'Colours', is out in April.


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