INTERVIEW: Alison Goldfrapp launches her debut solo album 'The Love Invention': "I want it to be purely electronic. I want it to be fake. I want it to be synthetic."
Interview: Jett Tattersall
Image: Mat Maitland
Alison Goldfrapp has been one of the most influential artists in music in the past twenty-five years. As the voice, the writer, the face of British electronica duo Goldfrapp, she defined the sound of the early 2000s with a mix of electro and synth-pop, disco, glam rock, jazz, folk and experimental pop.
Today she releases her stunning debut solo album The Love Invention. It is an album where Goldfrapp throws herself fully into bold, electronic synth-pop - with influences from Italo disco and new wave - of the absolute highest standard. Made to be played loud, none of these tracks hides behind subdued beats or downtempo chill electro.
Despite its glistening exterior, the album at its core is based around love, warmth and humanity. Goldfrapp sums this up best on the sultry, slow-burning and hypnotic ‘The Beat Divine”: “Only love can make you feel alive / Only love can make the beat divine”, she sings. Album opener ‘NeverStop', with its classic synth-pop beat and distorted vocals, puts the importance of love in simple terms: “You've arrived at the sublime...Never stop, never stop loving."
‘In Electric Blue’ is absolutely gorgeous and an album highlight. It sounds like a melancholic Scandipop dance-cry banger collided with a song that soundtracks the momentous love scene in a 1980s teen-romance film. “I know it's kinda crazy but it's true / I'm only in this world if it's with you,” Goldfrapp sings, in an almost ethereal voice. ‘Subterfuge’ is the closest thing the album gets to a ballad, a glimmering, sparkling track with angelic vocals and synths swooping in and out like a mirage in a desert.
‘Hotel (Suite 23)’ turns up the smouldering, seductive vibes a notch, with a brooding beat and a vocal that switches between breathy and high-pitched, immediately bringing in a late-night feel as Goldfrapp sings of forbidden, one-off assignations: “Hotel / Won't tell / Just one night | get with you". ‘Gatto Gelato’, with its chomping, old-school beats, is the audio equivalent of flirting with the person you have just spotted on the other side of the room: “I can make you feel like that ... / | like it", Goldfrapp drawls. Second single ‘So Hard So Hot’ is another mesmerising track: with an acid-house edge, it's full of innuendo that celebrates loving in the now - “It's so hard / It's so hot / It's the nature of now, so love what you got".
The Love Invention is first and foremost an album of sheer pop brilliance. It's heady, addictive, lush and connective, and it pulls you deep into its embrace. Fans of the sounds of the 1980s will revel in its synthpop throwbacks to that decade, and it is an album that will just compel you to dance and forget about everything except the hypnotic beats. We recently caught up with Goldfrapp to chat more about the creation of the album.
Alison, thank you so much for your time, this is such an honour. The Love Invention, oh my goodness, what an incredible album. You've called it a tribute to the dance floor, tell me about making this gem.
It's been a really fun thing to make, I've really enjoyed it. I wanted to make something that was much more about rhythm and beats and had a euphoric feeling to it. It's been an interesting journey, and oh god I can't wait for it to be out! We finished it a few months ago, and I've been hanging on to it for ages now. So I'll be really pleased for it to be everybody else's property.
On the album you question what it is to be not just human, but what it is to be a woman, and what makes us biological beings, but at the same time, it's always playful. It's always very sensual, and it's always fun. What was the tone of this album for you?
For me when I'm writing lyrics, I do like to play on words and things to have double meanings, not always consciously even. Humour is kind of important, it's not even humour necessarily it's a bit cheeky. I definitely wanted to do that on this album. For a long time, I've wanted to make something that has been specifically about beats and dance and electronic pop, all of those things, which I love. Lyrically, I like mixing up sex and science. I've gone through a big change in the last few years, and when I'm writing lyrics, I go between writing about the personal and the fantastical, or the personal and my view of what I'm seeing around me. There's a couple of songs where I've definitely been questioning what it is to be an older female. And that definitely gives me a new perspective on things.
What I'm loving on this album is this notion of the machine and the human, and you play so much sonically with electronic music, but so much further than what people perceive as electronic music. I visualised you making this album at the helm, like a kid in a candy shop, just pressing all the buttons going, ‘Okay, what does this sound like?!"
Yeah, I haven't played any keyboards on this album, I have done in the past, but I wouldn't call myself a
keyboard player. I would call myself what you just described, which is hitting things and just pressing random buttons and go, 'Oooh, that sounds good, I like that. It is a bit like that! At one point, I was thinking about putting strings on something and I thought, ‘no, no, no, I want it to be purely electronic. I want it to be fake. I want it to be synthetic" It's always interesting with working with synths is that you're trying to find the bucolic within the synthetic sounds. I kind of like that.
You are an incredible visual artist as well. Your performances, everything about your music we see it and it has so much longevity, after the song finishes people never forget it because they see it so clearly. For you personally have you always seen them as part and parcel, the visual and the audio?
Yeah, very much so. They go hand in hand. Music is a visual experience for me. I love listening to other people's music, music that takes me on a journey. I can't really penetrate a song when I'm writing unless I can figure out what the atmosphere is, and if it's pressing the right buttons. I see colours and vistas, so it is a visual experience. I do want to try to express some of that in the artwork, in the videos and the album sleeves and things like that. Mat Maitland, who did the artwork for the albums and videos, is someone I've worked with for a long time. When I was writing this album, I thought about Mat and his world, and I thought, ‘yeah, gotta get Mat involved in this’ because he always works with these fantastical, lush colours. So very early on, I approached him and said, ‘Would you be up for doing all the artwork?’ And he was, so that was great. I wanted it to be really colourful and kind of fantastical.
I know this is such a big question, but for you, if it has yet come, what was the moment that you went 'Oh shit, this is what I do. This is what I do now. I'm a pop star'
Well that's a good question. I don't know. I still ask myself 'Is this what I'm doing?' So that question never really goes away actually.
Doesn't matter if you're on stage at Glastonbury, it's still like, 'maybe this is just for today'
Yeah, kind of. Maybe I shouldn't think like that, I don't know. But I guess I also did have quite a big gap before doing that. And there was a question of whether I would do it again, actually. Because I had a little sabbatical, I needed some time out, to review what I was doing and how I was going to go forwards, not just with music, but with everything. I think it is really important to have that timeout from things sometimes to review your life and review what you need to do next. You need to clear out the cupboards to get in the new stuff. We all go through life changes, don't we? And you have to embrace that, and you have to let those things enhance your life and what's happening around you rather than denying them or trying to push them away.
The Love Invention is out now via Skint/BMG. You can buy and stream here.
To keep up with all things Alison Goldfrapp, you can follow her on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter.
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