Product Description

'Felt Mountain' is the debut album by the Wiltshire experimental pop duo Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory. Their downtempo, cinematic music has drew comparison with the work of Ennio Morricone. This collection includes the singles 'LovelyHead', 'Utopia' and 'Human'.

Track Listing

1. Lovely Head
2. Paper Bag
3. Human
4. Pilots
5. Deer Stop
6. Felt Mountain
7. Oompa Radar
8. Utopia
9. Horse Tears

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7842 in Music
• Released on: 2000-09-11
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
You might expect the debut album from a woman who has collaborated extensively with Tricky and Orbital to be both wondrous and strange--and you'd be right to. What you might not expect is quite the depth of Alison Goldfrapp's beguiling, distracting 21st-Century noir visions on Felt Mountain. She and her fellow composer Will Gregory can mix in Brechtian cabaret, classical instrumentation, left-of-field electronics, decadent Gainsbourg-style French pop and the odd piece of whistling on just one track ("Felt Mountain"). "Oompa Radar" almost reaches Tom Waits heights of infamy, the way familiar instruments come together in such a simultaneously comforting and alienating style. The baroque "Paper Bag", meanwhile, uncannily recalls Joe Meek's toytown visions of 1960's grandeur. All this, and a seductive vocal to die for. --Everett True

Customer Reviews

Enter a Total Relaxing Utopia!!!!
1. Lovely Head. 10/10
2. Paper Bag. 8/10
3. Human. 10/10
4. Pilots. 10/10
5. Deer Stop. 5/10*
6. Felt Mountain. 9/10
7. Oompa Radar. 9/10
8. Utopia. 10/10
9. Horse Tears 9/10

* OUCH!!! Totally PAINFUL!!!!

If you like "Supernature", "Black Cherry", and "Seventh Tree", have "Felt Montain". Obviously it's the weakest out of the 4, though really relaxing and entres you into a total state of calm.

OVERALL GRADE: 10/10

A great debut....

Best tracks: "Paper Bag", "Pilots", "Utopia", "Deer Stop".

A beautiful, beguiling debut, Felt Mountain is weird, atmospheric and sexy, full of cinematic, offbeat instrumentation, unusual lyrics and one hell of a winning hand in Alison Goldfrapp's gorgeous, sensual voice. Alison and multi-instrumentalist Will Gregory add lashings of delightful touches and quirks to proceedings, be they whale calls, whistling, Theremins, whip cracks, Hammond organs and much more. Despite being one of many albums connected a super cool, chill-out wave of artists such as Royksopp, Air, Zero 7 and others, Felt Mountain has far too much character, personality and emotion for it to be dismissed as mere coffee table/dinner party fodder. It's imperfect, but let's go easy on it; it's only a first album, after all! Those turned on by Black Cherry and Supernature may be surprised at how different this debut is; there's no glitter ball disco beats to be found here!

The opening "Lovely Head" was used for a commercial (I can't remember which one) and got a little bit overplayed, but listening to it again after some time away from it has proved to be a delight; a surreal, erotic, playful wonder. A special mention has to go to the massively atmospheric "Paper Bag", which is the main reason why this album stands out from the crowd; a thoroughly beguiling mix of folk, spy-movie soundtrack (very much in the John Barry style), chilly ambience, not to mention a fantastic opening line that'll stop you dead in your tracks, this song takes from all manners of influences and melds them into something entirely new and fresh; the effect is spellbinding. A more blatant John Barry/007 influence is present on "Human", which isn`t the best thing here. Granted, it does quicken the pace of the album, which for the most part is quite sedate, but this is one of the few songs here that feels like mere pastiche, whereas most of the other songs here use their variety of influences to mould something inventive from them. Much better is the late-night beauty of "Pilots", which is genuinely, vividly romantic, evocative of starry skies and stolen kisses; managing to pull of the feat of being dreamily love-struck, yet (for me) heartbreakingly melancholic, it was released as a single in an inferior version....believe me, the mix on Felt Mountain is all you'll ever need.

"Deer Stop" is a near-funereal piece, made extra weird and wonderful by Goldfrapp's vocals, which are distorted, melded and turned into something else entirely. The title track features yodelling (!) and is gloriously strange, evoking a winter's sleigh ride through snowy forests. The kooky "Oompa Radar" is probably one instrumental too many and drags the pace of the album a bit, but proceedings really picks up with the splendid, panoramic "Utopia", which thrillingly soars during that incredible chorus and finale. "Horse Tears" makes for an effectively downbeat closer, wrapping up a playful, very strong first album which despite the odd weak or so-so track, is a striking first shot from a duo who would, remarkably, shift gears in quite substantial fashion for their next, even better album.

Magical
I bought this album because i liked the Oh La La record so I bought supernature. I thought supernature was fantastic so I bought Black Cherry well imagin my suprise when I find out the Black Cherry is even beter than Supernature (if that was possible) so I had to have Felt mountain and well I Could not believe it completly different but utterly fantastic, you want to listen and listen.

If I had any complaint it would be that the album is TOO SHORT, She sings opera and I could listen to a whole album of her singing opera, she whistles and dah dahs its just great.

I bought the DVD also and the live versions of Dear stop are fantastic!

However one word of warning all the songs are about sex!

This album stands on its own unique it is so different to the second and third albums (which incidentely are both great albums).