Goldfrapp
Issue #35
Magic behind the makeup: After loads of touring, the British duo’s quest for balance comes through on their latest album, Seventh Tree
By Gina Pantone
Published: March 1st, 2008 | 2:53pm
Locked away in a bungalow somewhere in Bath, England, duo Goldfrapp found a way to record the gloomy landscape of British terrain and combine it with blinding California sunshine. Their trademark electro beats have faded to expose the group’s soft underbelly — folk sounds nurtured by lush strings — for their fourth release, Seventh Tree. It’s an album that explores the bleak aftermath of extreme vanity, the innocent nature of sexual exploration, and the whittling down of glitz and glamour.
The subtlety of Seventh Tree is what happens when the chaos of maintaining an elaborate onstage persona with a lavish, exhausting tour wears thin. Singer–synth player Alison Goldfrapp and multi-instrumentalist Will Gregory were tired — overrun by the demanding routine and writing techniques used to their fullest extent. Both decided, after closing the book on 2005’s extravagant disco-inspired Supernature that change would be necessary.
“We had a certain moment where we got off on making records —rehearsing it, touring it, doing videos for it — and then we got sort of sick of it,” Gregory explains going back to the basics. “We wondered if there was a better way. Another way of creating atmospheres and songs by turning the electronic gadgets off, turning the lights off — lit a few candles, joined hands, and — you know, made things a bit warmer. Less noisy.”
“First of all, I’m not sure if it is that folky or that psychedelic,” Goldfrapp clarifies. “I think it definitely has an atmosphere about it. We didn’t want to make another Supernature.” This is immediately evident upon the first listen of Seventh Tree. Sounds completely foreign to Goldfrapp’s past suddenly become key players; acoustic guitar, an Optigon, and a lone cello compliment Goldfrapp’s isolated vocals — no longer muffled by drum machines and deafening synthesizers.
Goldfrapp has always seen musical integrity and visual art as Siamese twins, with their live shows featuring melodramatic costumes and choreographed avant-garde dancing. The band does not take their stage show lightly. To them, it’s not just a gig — it’s theater.
“I think [performing onstage] is just another medium or language to express music and mood — when you see something live, you want it to be a spectacle,” Goldfrapp comments on her knack for dressing the part. “You want people to get the story and, for me, part of the story is the narrative of imagery. It is easy to get into that mood if you’re dressed accordingly. I think it’s funny that a band deliberately dresses in jeans or all black — that is equally as much portraying an image as a costume and stiletto heels. It’s an image for some people, but that is their image: jeans and a T-shirt. For me, the visual side of it and the music are inseparable — they are part of the same world.”
With this imagery, Goldfrapp has made a career conjuring up visuals of chic sexuality with entrancing beats and breathy vocals — like caged animals in heat. Seventh Tree, however, is ambient and serene. It is sort of like going to see David Bowie as Ziggy Stardust and instead getting Joni Mitchell. It’s the heart and soul without the mirror balls and smoke machines.
That’s precisely the theme of this record: beauty at its most fragile moments. The track in which this message is most evident is album opener, “Clowns.” Goldfrapp’s voice soars with audible vulnerability over Gregory’s solitary guitar picking as she tells of women losing themselves in the idea of eternal youth and plasticity. There are faint sounds of birds chirping overhead, further cementing the notion that nature was right all along, and one mustn’t fool with it.
This concept of true beauty-over-bombshell is something Goldfrapp struggles to deal with. “I definitely think I invented an image for myself, and at times I felt people would hold me by it if I met them outside, that I have onstage,” she says. “Sometimes I find that quite tiring and claustrophobic.” Goldfrapp thinks the world is constantly bombarded with images of woman desperately trying to look young. “We’re constantly told to ask ourselves, ‘Are we too fat? Are we too thin?’ and it’s rather dull and I’m bored with it. How I present myself in imagery and onstage — I was a bit naïve, actually — I didn’t expect people to take that so seriously and want me to be that 24 hours a day. It’s a lot of maintenance. I just think women have a benefit of being able to dress up in makeup and hair and change that image. It’s very empowering, but I think you can also become a slave to it.”
The song “Happiness” explores the notion of finding yourself when losing everything. In the song, Goldfrapp asks the age-old question “How’d you get to find happiness?” after instructing her audience to join the band's blissful ranks, donate all of their money, and discover the secret to real living, for sometimes it can get lost in imaginary greener pastures. She is very conscious of the trappings of falsehood. “A lot of the time when you’re touring and doing interviews and it’s the end of the day and you have to get in makeup for three hours, you question, ‘What the fuck am I doing? I just want to make some music.’ It’s getting a balance. Once you get on that wheel, it’s quite hard to get back off it or feel like you’re in control of it.”
Seventh Tree returns to the fundamentals of composition. The album’s first single, “A&E,” begins with an arpeggiated piano line, setting up Goldfrapp’s soprano fluidity. It’s very reflective, something that would score a film’s concluding montage. The protagonist drives away from their hometown one last time, remembering the demons and recounting the triumphs. In a way, this is how Goldfrapp approached this record — by getting out of their comfort zones to let creativity happen in a very instinctive manner.
Gregory notes the importance of both structure and improvisation when composing. “I think we both feel that if you let things happen when you record, good things will arrive,” he says. “It’s good to do both. You do calculate some things, you check off all of the boxes, like a little grid where you organize yourself. You stitch it all together and it’s rubbish and you think, ‘Oh God,’ and you throw it all up in the air and it all falls down in the wrong order — and it’s great. You should be open to anything working, and it doesn’t matter how you get it. We improvise a lot, it’s probably our most productive way of doing things.”
Goldfrapp has never been shy about turning heads. Seventh Tree is no exception, as it is audacious in an entirely new way for them — emotionally. There are still glimpses of sexuality and temptation, but with subtlety. “Obviously, the person I am onstage isn’t the same person I am at home when I feed the cats,” Goldfrapp jokes. “I’m not wearing stilettos and cracking a whip when I put the cat food out. It’s a part of me, just like there are many parts of everybody. We’re talking drama here, and we’re talking music.”
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