The Brag

Goldfrapp
Head To Head
By Chris Honnery

Alison Goldfrapp’s reputation precedes her: the ‘English diva’ doesn’t give much away in interviews. But I was sure this time would be different, an exception to the norm, as Alison is in a blissful headspace at the moment. A listen to Goldfrapp’s latest album, Head First, is testament to this – an ebullient and arguably even saccharine release that sits in almost diametric opposition to its sombre and introspective predecessor, Seventh Tree.

“I loved Seventh Tree and I loved touring it, but after that album I really wanted to do something that was putting us back out there making some noise again,” Alison tells me. “That just felt like the right thing to do, and we went with that. We always go with our gut feeling; for better or worse we just do what we feel at that moment.”

And why is Alison so happy right now? At the risk of stooping to a base cliché, the answer is simply ‘love’. Alison was ‘outed’ last year as a ‘mid-life lesbian’ in a relationship with film editor Lisa Gunning. “I don’t know why people would find it surprising,” she said later. “Everything we’ve ever done — the music, the looks, the shows — has all been quite ambiguous and indefinable, and that’s how I am. I don’t like to be defined by my sexuality, which swings wherever I like to swing. I’ve had lovely, long relationships with men as well – I just happen to be in a relationship with a lady at the moment. I don’t like to be pigeonholed in my life, or my music either. The best policy seems to be to go with what feels right, so I do.”

Alison met Gunning when working on the score for Sam Taylor-Wood’s John Lennon biopic Nowhere Boy, which was recorded with a 35-piece string section at Abbey Road. “Sam knew our music and she was keen for us to have a go at doing it,” Alison recounts. “Everybody involved in the film had a sense of what we’re about, and so they really knew what they wanted to hear. It was a leap of faith from their point of view because they could have gotten any other composer or people who were more experienced in film scores.”

Given the cinematic texture of many of their albums, particularly the debut LP Felt Mountain, it comes as no surprise when Alison confirms that working on soundtracks has been on Goldfrapp’s radar for some time. “We have been offered things in the past but we’ve said ‘no’, either because it hasn’t fitted in with our schedule or we’ve felt it wasn’t quite the right thing to do,” she says. Something that ostensibly fits into the ‘not the right thing to do’ category was Goldfrapp’s collaboration with Christina Aguilera, which has been covered at length by sections of the media. “We just wrote something for her over a year ago, we never finished it, and that’s the end of that really,” Alison says curtly. “It’s been made much bigger than it ever actually was.”

With the shelved Aguilera collaboration apparently a hackneyed topic of discussion, conversation shifts to how Alison works with the ‘reclusive’ other half of Goldfrapp, Will Gregory. “Reclusive?” a bemused Alison sneers. “That’s ridiculous. He doesn’t tour, he’s never toured, but he does the press with me – he’s not a recluse he just doesn’t tour.”

With the dormant beast apparently stirring, I quickly steer conversation to safer territory – how they make the music. Alison explains that, contrary to what one might glean from Goldfrapp’s disparate back catalogue, the pair doesn’t go into the studio with preconceived ideas of what an album should sound like. “It’s difficult to explain, because there’s no formula to what we do,” she says. “We spend a lot of time in the studio jamming and talking about things we’ve seen or listened to that we’ve liked. We record absolutely everything we do; as soon as we start jamming we record everything, just in case it might inspire the beginning of a song or something. It’s a process that involves playing, talking and experimenting.”

Alison is also happy to agree that the Goldfrapp albums serve as signposts of different stages of her life. “I collect ideas and thoughts about things I want to hear, or a feeling or an atmosphere,” she says. “Sometimes you can start with a specific idea, and as soon as you start working that can change. You have to be flexible and allow for that to happen, to let things evolve naturally. Each album’s kind of like a diary in a way. It’s so much about a feeling at that moment at that time… it’s very much a personal expression.”

From Black Cherry and Supernature to the current Head First, it remains to be seen where the outfit will turn next. But based on the Goldfrapp oeuvre, it’d be surprising if Alison’s plunge ‘head first’ into love doesn’t lead to far more surreal ruminations on the topic than the maudlin meditations we’d expect from someone like, say, Christina Aguilera…

Who: Goldfrapp

What: Head First is out now

When: Thursday July 29

Where: Big Top, Luna Park