There's Goldfrapp in them thar hills

>> The English duo reach for the top their own way

by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

The first listen I gave Goldfrapp's stunning debut Felt Mountain was an auspicious one. I slapped it in on a bus ride to NYC last fall and let the English duo's grand and glorious sounds soak in as the Adirondacks, exploding into their full autumnal regalia of red, rust and gold, rolled past my window.

A nice way to get into most any disc, but unusually appropriate in this case. Musically, if not lyrically, the tunes of singer/whistler/keyboardist Alison Goldfrapp and her composing partner Will Gregory speak of breathtaking expanses of unsullied natural splendour. Which, in a way, is where the music comes from.

"We recorded the album in this pretty awful, crusty old bungalow in the Wiltshire countryside," says Goldfrapp. "We rented it as it was in a nice little village outside Bath--it didn't have any neighbours, it was cheap and it had a kind of nice vibe about it. We did it there because neither of us like big studios, and it was a nice environment. It's probably what we'll do again when we make the next one.

"Obviously, your environment has an effect on you, without a doubt, and like I say, I really don't like professional studios--I find them uninspiring and clinical. Also, it's nice to have a view, looking out at something, but I think we would have done the same kind of music anyway, to be honest."

The kind of music that Goldfrapp (who's sung with Orbital and Tricky) and Gregory (who's composed numerous soundtracks) do is fairly unique, even if it does draw on resources that are rather in vogue these days--'60s French adult pop, vintage cinerama, chamber orchestration and cabaret. "We have very different backgrounds, but we complement each other very well. I really wanted to work with someone who understood strings and that whole thing. We share an interest in the same kinds of music and similar ways of making music. We wanted to make music that we both felt nobody else was doing in the same way--we set out to make music we wanted to hear. That was our agenda."

I'm loath to apply the term "cinematic," even if I can't shake the panoramic Adirondack travelogue from my head (others may visualize the Swiss Alps of Bond lore or fiery desert ranges in a Morricone/Leone vein). Too often, a brief string loop is all a producer needs to claim a connection to the silver screen. "That's one of the things that we discussed when we met, that we really didn't want to do. We wanted to get right away from that, make the sounds, write it all ourselves and get people to come in and play it. That was all part of the fun of doing it, really starting from scratch and making our own world.

"It's funny how people always go on about these analogies to us, what film would you choose to score and blah-blah-blah. Writing for a film is so completely different. It's much more disjointed, things go off at random. It's definitely an inspiration to us, but ultimately we're making songs."

With Gazelle at Spectrum on Friday, may 4, 8pm, $25