Goldfrapp
Felt Mountain
Menu (2000)
Allison Goldfrapp found her way into the music scene while studying fine art at Middlesex University in England. Combining sound, visuals, and performance in her installation pieces led to an appearance on her friend Tricky’s 1995 debut, Maxinquaye. Subsequent appearances with other cutting-edge electronica artists, including Orbital and Add N to X, encouraged her to try her own hand at composing. Her demos came to the attention of composer, Will Gregory, and finding much in common with their musical tastes, the duo began collaborating as Goldfrapp.
Their debut, Felt Mountain, is rife with the influences of trip hop (notably Portishead), crooners like Billy Holiday and Shirley Bassey, and healthy doses of John Barry’s genius for arrangement, especially his James Bond themes and harpsichord embellishments.
This is gorgeous, downbeat electronica with an emphasis on melody and vocals. Gregory’s background in soundtrack composing lends a film score aesthetic to the mix – favouring mood, tempo and texture to beats and grooves. And it seems that no expense was spared in production, with complex arrangements including a 35-piece brass section on the track, “Oompa Radar”.
While the richly orchestrated backing tracks are stunningly beautiful, it’s Goldfrapp’s hypnotic vocals that are front and centre. Her intimate, elastic croon is used with remarkable confidence and not a little melodrama, something she should leave at home when touring. At a recent Toronto concert, I was utterly mesmerized by her singing until she inexplicably emptied her drink on the front rows and walked off stage, lest we forget she’s a temperamental artiste. Pitch-pure opera.
Go to: www.feltmountain.com to sample tracks and videos.
Tindersticks
Can Our Love…
Beggar’s Banquet (2001)
Tindersticks are not known for being the life of anyone’s party. Their brooding, poetic lamentations, up to nine minutes long, are dark and steeped in perpetual bleakness and foreboding strings.
Surprise, surprise! The band seems positively buoyant on their latest offering, Can Our Love… (not counting the just released soundtrack to the movie Trouble Every Day).
Darlings of British rock critics since their debut in 1993 with the self-titled, Tindersticks, (Melody Maker rated it album of the year), the acoustic sextet has broadened their sound here. The imminent gloom and melancholy of previous discs has eased somewhat, and the sound is lighter, with a soulful, ’70s swing.
Lead mumbler Stuart Staples’ delicate, sonorous, molasses-slow delivery occupies a space somewhere between Leonard Cohen’s basso rumble and Bryan Ferry’s angst riddled croon, so there’s still lots of mood and romantic imagery. It’s a kind of modern day soul for the “heavy drinking, four-packs-a-day” crowd.
Not for everyone, especially if you are contemplating using any kind of mood- enhancing drugs.
Eleni Mandell
Wishbone, Thrill, Snakebite
Zedtone (1998, 2000, 2001)
The very first and best thing I ever purchased on the Internet was Eleni Mandell’s self-released debut album, Wishbone.
The album was well received by critics and such veteran musicians as Tom Waits (whom she cites as a major influence), but remained strangely ignored by industry gurus south of the border. Undaunted, she released Thrill and Snakebite, establishing herself as a force to be reckoned with, and further confounding the major labels who obviously have no idea what to do with this versatile performer.
Garnering comparisons to everyone from alt-music diva PJ Harvey, to cabaret singers like Lotte Lenya, it’s probably a blessing she has remained “independent” so she can pursue her noirish observations of L.A.’s seedy underbelly unfettered by industry meddling.
All three albums offer an eclectic melange of vocal personas: sultry, seductive cabaret chanteuse; smoky coffee-house balladeer; acoustic rocker; 1950s tropicalia star and sexy lounge singer.
The influences are wide-ranging and obvious, but she has managed to blend it all brilliantly into her own unique brand of impassioned, evocative songwriting.
There are no artificial additives here. Mandell is the real McCoy and deserves your support.
