Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory recorded Felt Mountain (2000), their debut album, as soon as they signed their contract with the production company Mute. It must be understood that much of the inspiration came during the recording period itself, for example through the unpleasant sensations that the vocalist Alison experienced in the bungalow they rented in the British county of Wiltshire. The themes are quite dark, even tragic, although always in the most theatrical sense of the term.
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Felt Mountain is an unclassifiable work, ascribed to pop-rock for the simple fact that there is a solo voice and the songs follow the more or less traditional structure of the pop song of a lifetime. But Goldfrapp show that, musically speaking, they have a very well-furnished head: we find grandiose arrangements, typical of the cosmic rock of yesteryear, or even of Kraftwerk and even of the Vangelis of the seventies; reminiscent of the soundtracks for westerns by Morricone, of the James Bond themes by John Barry, or of Danny Elfman's fantasy films; airs of decadent Berlin cabaret and, above all, a conception of the song as a small work of art, carefully taken care of to the maximum in which the instrumentation is not eclipsed by the main voice, in spite of the fact that the second one is of very high quality.
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I highlight, above all others, the song Utopia. It is a kind of love song in the middle of a far-right dystopia as Orwell, Huxley or K. Dick would conceive it, with brainwashing and cloning. Dick, with brainwashing and cloning by the bucketload.
"Utopia" is the highlight of the album, Alison Goldfrapp highlights her soprano skills to give high tones and counterpoint with a soft voice that whispers the lyrics.
It's a strange day
No colours or shapes
No sound in my head
I forget who I am
When I'm with you
The melotron sound that is present during the gives an incredible strength and forces you to keep listening until the final choruses, where Alison turns it into an emotional reverie.