Seventh Tree

Product Information

silent under the needle in the interims, and the music is all where it should be in terms of detail and power. It was unprecedented enough that a group which started out trafficking in cabaret eeriness and cinematic grandiosity would ease so naturally into club-pop, so it's not out of the question that dialing back to pastoral, folksy indie-electronica would unearth another side of a duo that was shaping up to be one of the decade's most versatile. Not many of us could spend the best part of two years perving around to retro-futuristic electro kink-pop with horseheads in killer heels.

Barney Hoskyns of The Observer commented that the duo "have made an album as hummably lovely as it is knowingly referencing of a certain tradition of neo-psychedelic English whimsy. Pitchfork may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers.The DVD contained music videos, behind-the-scenes footage and several live performances filmed at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea in June 2008.

Some of the tracks launch themselves into hippy psychedelia and here and there it sounds like some of the instruments are being looped backwards ( "Little Bird" ). It's an LP that on the surface is about the feeling of freedom and being free, but in reality it's about all the things we do to ourselves to enslave ourselves and deny ourselves the freedom we all crave. Adrien Begrand of PopMatters found that Seventh Tree "might be a quieter and more introspective disc than we'd been expecting, but this is still a quintessential Goldfrapp album with Gregory's arrangements brilliantly underscoring the inimitable vocal versatility of his female foil. If she can make something this fresh out of ostensibly stale source material, what might she do next?You'd be better served playing who-did-it best, and what's striking about Seventh Tree is how deftly it manipulates well-worn ideas. Seventh Tree's accompanying blurb depicts Goldfrapp and Gregory, secluded in Somerset, coming up with the notion of making a Wicker Man-influenced psychedelic folk album. Wonderful sounds and arrangements abound, and I have to say this album really highlights Alison's vocal prowess and versatility (has anyone else noted that hint of Norah Jones), never more impressive than on Road To Somewhere.

Recorded with longtime collaborator Will Gregory out in rural Somerset, Seventh Tree feels like an attempt to fuse the pagan folk of cult English horror classic The Wicker Man to a lush backdrop of woozy electronics and a restrained orchestral sweep reminiscent of '70s-era Serge Gainsbourg. The album artwork depicted Goldfrapp dressed as a clown and hugging a tree, as well as Gregory dressed as an owl.With its sweeping strings Cologne Cerrone Houdini has a slight Emmanuel flavour - all soft-focus erotic suggestion - and Happiness and Some People are further proof of the duo's growing songwriting genius and pop nous. Like the bulk of the album, there's a certain beauty in opener "Clowns", but it's an empty one-- more lullaby than pop song, it's symptomatic of what happens when you take all the grandeur out of big sweeping melodies. And so it's come as no surprise that after having done such with their last album - the amazing Moroder-meets-Weimar glittering sauce-fest that was 2005's Supernature - that Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory have opted for a more relaxed and even - crikey!

Informed by Edward Lear, The Wicker Man and early Pink Floyd, it's leaves and owls and the mildly psychedelic. Even if Seventh Tree is sonic dishwater, I'll give Goldfrapp enough credit to assume that this isn't change for its own sake, that the motivation for this album's tone wasn't simply a fatigued boredom with their old sound. Despite being critical of Alison Goldfrapp's "wispy, ethereal, often impenetrable vocal approach", Dave Hughes of Slant Magazine opined that the album is "most compelling for the way in which the band's regained austerity and naturalism contrasts with their more recent hedonism.I've only recently discovered Goldfrapp and what I'm continually amazed by is their ability to make music I initially don't like and then it grows on me.