Goldfrapp: Seventh Tree
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Sunday, 02, Mar 2008 01:00
Mute Records, out February 25th.
In a nutshell...
Can't see the Goldfrapp for the trees
What's it all about?
Seventh Tree is the fourth album release from genre-bending pop duo Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory.
Aptly, the album was recorded at the group's personal studio in the deepest, darkest English countryside, for Seventh Tree is by far their folksiest work yet.
The surrealist existentialism of earlier albums is still there, but expressed by more conventional ballads led by Alison Goldfrapp's shimmeringly-unique voice and Gregory's tuneful guitar/baleful piano.
A&E, the first single to be taken from the album, is an endearingly-delicate piece of music that encompasses Seventh Tree's faerie theme, despite being about a hospital ward on a Saturday night.
The acoustic guitar sets that punctuate the entire album allow Alison Goldfrapp to subtly dominate the record without the sometimes oppressive ambience that was a feature of their previous work.
Who's it by?
Goldfrapp have continued to defy convention since forming on the eve of the new millennium, with Seventh Tree continuing their habit of seamless reinvention.
Alison Goldfrapp (vocals) and Will Gregory (mainly synthesiser) earned a Mercury prize-nomination for their debut album Felt Mountain in 2000, with the beguiling Lovely Head seemingly setting the band up for a career in chill-out lounges.
But sophomore effort Black Cherry was, as the name suggests, an entirely darker affair that departed from the head-filling ambience of Felt Mountain.
In 2005 Goldfrapp completed their apparent transition into electric disco with Supernature, which went platinum in the UK.
Upbeat songs Ooh La La, Lovely 2 C U, Ride a White Horse and Number 1 were, in the band's own words, "airbrushed in bold strokes of glitterball glamour".
With Seventh Tree, Goldfrapp have again taken a turn in an unexpected direction and emerged with a mostly fresh sound, and, for once, stopped trying to make you fancy their lead singer.
As an example...
"It's a blue, bright blue Saturday, hay hay/And the pain has started to slip away, hay, hay/I'm in a backless dress on a pastel ward, it's shining/Think I want you still but it may be pills at work.
"Do you really wanna know how I was dancing on the floor?/I was trying to phone you when I'm crawling out the door/I'm amazed at you, the things you say that you don't do/Why don't you ring." - A&E
"The shiny blackest crow/Flew in to say hello/Though much to her surprise/He had two mouths for eyes/She understood his words/That crow was very pleased/He gave to her his wings/And now she is free/Now we are free." - Little Bird
Likelihood of a trip to the Grammy's
Goldfrapp's dance sound has gone down well in the states, but the bucolic Seventh Tree is unlikely to strike much of a chord.
At home though, the band can expect to be recognised for their novel approach to album-making.
What the others say
"This album sounds as if it wasn't so much written as photosynthesised into being. Should you be so inclined, Seventh Tree will do for both orchard-based frolicking and picnicking in the shadow of standing stones." - The Times
"The successor to two collections of camply sexualised, glam-influenced electro-pop, Seventh Tree represents a dramatic rethink: out go the stomping glitter beats and whip-crack synthesisers, in comes 'psychedelic folk'." - The Guardian
So is it any good?
Much has been made of Goldfrapp's eclectic track record and their habit of re-innovation, and in many ways Seventh Tree is a failure of original thought.
The band are far from the first to be influenced by pagan symbolism and dark English winters, but few that have come before them have handled the themes so neatly.
Of course, some songs on Seventh Tree are a much more autumnal affair, with opening and closing tracks Clowns and Monster Love book-ending the album's other-earthier efforts.
By the same token, the band's ambient past is inescapable in Happiness and Road to Somewhere, although these two tracks are sandwiched between the 'plays with spiders sounds' of Little Bird and Eat Yourself.
The self-indulgent Some People precedes standout track A&E, which revels in its accessibility and chime-like melodies.
Penultimate tracks Cologne Cerrone Houdini - sung in a heavy German accent ("in another vorld") - and the almost grandiloquent Caravan Girl accentuate the 'imagined, recorded and performed in a forest' theme.
Seventh Tree, a triumph of conceptualisation if not imagination, emerges as the band's overall most satisfying album yet, revelling in the talents of Alison Goldfrapp and delivering her mix of "English romanticism with a hint of California sunshine".
8/10
Matthew Champion