“Your Lovely Head”: The beautifully disturbing world of Goldfrapp’s Felt Mountain

(Image 1)

“Do you understand this feeling?”—Frankenstein, Or, the Modern Prometheus [p. 17, Courage Books (Philadelphia, 1990)]

“There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand.” (ibid, p. 21)

An essay taking an analytical approach to Goldfrapp's “Felt Mountain”.

Background

“Felt Mountain” is an album by Goldfrapp, a two-person band comprised of Allison Goldfrapp and Will Greggory. [1]

"Felt Mountain" straddles several genres of music. All Music Guide places it into the chamber pop, electronica and alternative pop/rock music categories (among others).

All Music Guide's definition of chamber pop is useful when thinking of Felt Mountain:

“Drawing heavily from the lush, orchestrated work of performers including Brian Wilson, Burt Bacharach, and Lee Hazlewood, Chamber Pop arose largely as a reaction to the lo-fi aesthetic dominant throughout much of the 1990s alternative music community. Inspired in part by the lounge-music revival but with a complete absence of irony or kitsch, chamber pop placed a renewed emphasis on melody and production, as artists layered their baroque, ornate songs with richly textured orchestral strings and horns, all the while virtually denying the very existence of grunge, electronica, and other concurrent musical movements.”

This album was released in 2000 to critical acclaim, and the hit off it was “Utopia”.

Author notes

I'm approaching the album as if it were a concept album - which I think it arguably is. I'll also be focusing on lyrical content rather than the music - as this interests me more. For descriptions of the music on “Felt Mountain” see the related links section at the end of this piece.

I do not take Goldfrapp's other albums into consideration, preferring to limit my analysis to the well-defined, self-contained world of “Felt Mountain”.

As I listened to Felt Mountain, I became increasingly disturbed by its ambiguities. The music itself is undoubtedly beautiful, but not always pleasantly so. And some of it sounds frighteningly alienated.

It’s this strange alienation bound with lush sensuality that produced a sort of cognitive dissonance in my ears. This essay is an attempt to resolve this musical cognitive dissonance. Comments are welcome.

Overview

Goldfrapp's album, Felt Mountain, isn't so much music as landscape. The band have created a unique, distinct world with the nine songs on the original release.

All songs share the same musical "grammar", which provides an overall narrative arc to what may appear at first to be a series of unconnected tracks.

What does the music sound like? With an unusual album like Felt Mountain, the best way to convey this is to ask, "how does it make you feel?" Think of the B.F. Skinner and his experiment raising his daughter in a Skinner box. (You're being nurtured, but at a distance.) Or the beautiful but clinical world in the flim Gattaca, based on the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (a work Felt Mountain's hit, "Utopia", plays upon). [2]

Felt Mountain is a place that is cool, indifferent and yet deeply engaged, emotionally; caring and kind, and yet cruel. As one Amazon reviewer puts it: "your emotions will be different before and after you listen to this masterpiece."

Another indicator of the emotional impact of the music comes from All Music Guide, which provides a list of words to describe the music: atmospheric, ambitious, dramatic, reflective, detached, spooky, sexy, brooding, melancholy, eerie, elegant, theatrical, hypnotic, refined/mannered, menacing. All are accurate and give you some idea of what you're in for.

Others have written more extensively about the music (see related links at the end of this essay). The primary focus of this piece will be on the lyrics, with support from the music and vocalization to support my readings.

…

Introduction

Icy blast of sensuality

Felt Mountain provides what one Amazon commenter terms an “icy little blast of sensuality” - an insight echoed in Heather Phares’s review at All Music Guide:

“From the sci-fi/spy film hybrids “Human” and “Lovely Head” to the title track’s icy purity, the duo strikes a wide variety of poses, giving Felt Mountain a stylized, theatrical feel that never veers into campiness.”

The artic metaphor reviewers rely on is lifted musically and lyrically from "Felt Mountain" - as well as visually (see Image 1).

Why the emphasis on nature? Consider this passage from Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein, which is referenced on the first track. The speaker is addressing an explorer aboard a ship sailing in the Arctic:

“Prepare to hear of occurrences which are usually deemed marvelous. Were we among the tamer scenes of nature, I might fear to encounter your unbelief, perhaps your ridicule; but many things will appear possible in these wild and mysterious regions, which would provoke the laughter of those unacquainted with the ever-varied powers of nature…” - Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley, p. 21

Snow obscures topographical reference points, making familiar territory alien. And this is what Felt Mountain is about - you've lost familiar markers and are stepping into a snowy world with no human footprints to guide you.

The snow also makes the environment other-worldly, and, as the Frankenstein excerpt indicates, a fitting environment for the preternatural. (Some cinematic examples are The Shining, Narnia and The Thing; all are set in snowy landscapes where fantastical events seem plausible.)

Snow, paradoxically, creates both desolation and beauty. Both elements - a sense of emotional devastation, lofty heights (see Image 1) and great musical beauty - pleasingly co-mingled on “Felt Mountain”, lending the album a sublime character.

(Nature is often interpreted as a manifestation of God. “Felt Mountain” is the most Godless territory I've ever entered into, musically, so the absence of God may be another connotation here.)

Track-by-track:

Lovely Head

It starts in my belly
Then up to my heart
Into my mouth I can't keep it shut
Do you recognise the smell
Is that how you tell
Us apart
I fool myself to sleep and dream
Nobody's here
No-one but me
So cool
You're hardly there
Why can't this be killing you
Frankenstein would want your mind
Your lovely head
Your lovely head

The opening track introduces several themes:

• The snowy, arctic theme (only hinted at in the line so cool, but developed as the album progresses).


• An animalistic theme: reliance on an acute sense of smell (as opposed to sight, which is generally accepted as the primary sense for perception in humans).


• A sense of captivity, possibly self-imposed (Nobody's here / No-one but me).


• Self-imposed denial of reality as a comforting device (I fool myself to sleep and dream).

Looking at these pieces of this bizarre puzzle, one can't help beginning to construct a narrative in order to bring some order to the chaos. But, breaking it down, we only have hints and glimpses of what is going on.

We don't have much information about the narrator at this point, other than gender (female). But there is a sense of claustrophobia, isolation, dissatisfaction (with the other person in the - room ?), possibly dissatisfaction with the self, and distant admiration (Your lovely head).

Is the “you” she refers to absent - physically? Or is it an emotional withdrawal she senses from “You”? The smell line suggests an intimacy between the narrator and "You", but she also seems to hate or resent the "You" (Why can't this be killing you).

What about the Frankenstein reference, and repeated final lines of the song? In straight-forward love-songs, the narrator usually talks about the beloved's eyes, or face, but certainly not their head - which is clinical and objectifying language, unsuitable for a love discourse.

The dropped-in literary reference to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is obviously significant. Thematically, this song (and others) touch upon themes popularized by science fiction. The first thing that springs to mind, of course, is dismembered body parts (your lovely head) appropriated from other sites to create a new, superior human.

I can't help thinking of nearby Treloar College, the school for the disabled that was near Alton College, where Allison Goldfrapp took a music course:

Alton College is a sixth form college located in Alton, Hampshire, UK. It has Beacon College status, recognising it as one of the best colleges in the country. The College offers a wide range of A-level and vocational qualifications and caters for students with disabilities from nearby Treloar College, a specialist college. (Source: Wikipedia; emphasis added.)

So, Allison Goldfrapp attended a middle-school that has high percentage of disabled students. If you were in an environment where you see disabled people everyday, you might start to contemplate the body, technology, and hybrids of both. It would agitate the question of what makes us human, and how much of this is dependent upon our physical selves taking a certain "standard" form.

I think this early environment (ages 16-18) of Allison Goldfrapp's is reflected in the preoccupations of "Felt Mountain", and expressed through the genre of sci-fi, where many of these areas are explored.

The other startling aspect of this introductory track, especially for first-time listeners, is the conflict between musical arrangement and the lyrics.

The music is lush and breathtaking, suggesting a grand, open landscape. But this feeling doesn't reflect the dissatisfaction and gruesomeness found in the lyrics. Why can't this be killing you hints at violence being done to the singer (or "narrator"). Is something slowly killing the narrator? What? And who is the “You?” whom the narrator wishes "this" were killing, instead of her?

Just where are they?

Listen on…

Paper Bag

No time to fuck
But you like the rush
And where would we
be without sums
Deals we make
Brown paper bag makes for a hat
When it rains on
Your head mate
Cheers for that
When the world stops for snow
When you laugh
I'm inside
Your mouth
Sucking the sun
Baboons and birds
With the weight of you dear
I forgot
Brown paper bag makes for a hat
When it rains on
Your head mate
Cheers for that
When the world stops for snow
When you laugh
I'm inside
Your mouth
Oh just go dear
Feels a tear
When you laugh
I'm inside
Your mouth

"Paper Bag" is a (relatively) benevolent pause in the album.

The claustrophobia and sense of impending doom in "Lovely Head" are banished in the second track. Things on the surface - and musically - seem happy and well in this song, if in a warped, kaleidoscopic way.

What are the chords of discord?

• The “rushed fuck” may be initially satisfying, but seems to also hint at underlying dissatisfaction with the relationship; a "rushed fuck" is more about achieving orgasm than sharing something intimate with someone significant to you.

• When you laugh I'm inside your mouth

This line about laughter is filled with foreboding: to be in someone's mouth is a precarious position - you can be chewed, swallowed, spat out - generally broken down and ingested by - what? Something so large it dwarfs you.

Even on a symbolic level, it implies a kind of power imbalance with its Alice-in-Wonderland physical scaling.

• The colloquial conversational exchange (which is the only one on the album) is somehow mundane and bizarre at the same time:

“Brown paper bag makes for a hat - you know, when it rains on your head, mate.”
“Oh, cheers for that… (I was going to get wet!)”

The exchange sounds like a distinctly British piece of dialogue to me: this could be an exchange between shop keeper and customer in a newsagent's, when it unexpectedly begins to pour outside.

The odd thing about it is its appearance in the surreal landscape of "Felt Mountain". The dialogue's normalcy is completely out of place; instead of being reassuring, this exchange reminds the listener of just how far removed we are from the everyday world.

Despite these odd chords, most of the song documents a happier time in the couple's history, when goofy playful things were tried, and the couple's happiness made them oblivious to rain or snow. Yes, there's the usual surrealness (Sucking the sun / Baboons and birds), but nothing too jarring.

There is still the sense of immobility (When the world stops for snow), perhaps a little maths/science worship (And where would we
be without sums), and, most imporantly, failure of the brain - specifically, failure of memory (I forget).

If "Felt Mountain" is a love story, it's a very odd one.

Next track...

Human

They fall
From your mouth
Propelled by your belly and your tongue
I shiver when you shake
And I fold into jelly
I think I loved you more than me
Are you human
Or a dud
Are you human
Or d'you make it up
My baby cherry slipped
Pass me through your fingertips
Throw me down like an old rag
I'm not standing
Don't look back
Are you human
Or a dud
Are you human
Or d'you make it up
Are you human
Or a dud
Are you human
Or d'you make it up
They went searching
For your body
They went looking but there's nobody
Who smells like you
Who looks like you
You're not human... too
(repeat chorus)

We're back into full discord here with "Human": the music is less ethereal and more more brassy and punchy. Allison Goldfrapp's vocal performance verges on a parodic Shirley Bassey, circa James Bond 007.

It sounds like our narrator is disenchanted with the relationship, questioning her partner's very humanity (Are you human / Or a dog / Are you human / Or d'you make it up).

There's also a hint that murder was committed (They went searching / For your body), prompting a reviewer at All Music Guide to liken it to a “sci-fi/spy film hybrid”. Whatever has happened to the narrator's partner, she doesn't seem to care that much, and perhaps is even glad to be finally released from the relationship.

Again, the refrain of relying on sense of smell for identification reappears (note how it takes precedence over sight):

They went looking but there's nobody
Who smells like you
Who looks like you
You're not human… too.

The “too” at the end of the final lyric suggests the narrator is inhuman as well.

If she's not human, what is she? One can't help but think of the Frankenstein reference in the first song, and the (dismembered?) "lovely head", as well as the missing body mentioned in "Human". Was… something created? Something that doesn't fully qualify as "human"?

And is it something internal - the brutal behavior that can exist in relationships - that puts one's humanness into question?

Or is it something external that jeopardizes human status, such as a body which is composed of different parts grafted together, as in Frankenstein...? Or, to move away from literature and to the present moment: how does cosmetic surgery threaten people's identities? How many surgical alterations can the body undergo before it becomes so distanced from it's original form that its human-ness is degraded? Can human-ness be rescued once lost?

If this is a love-story, it is not a straight-forward one. Could it possibly be a laboratory relationship - a doctor and his assistant? Or perhaps the relationship is more like that found in a 1940s detective story (the private detective and his secretary, a la "The Maltese Falcon")? [5]

Pilots

Armoured cars sail the sky
They're pink at dawn
If I lived forever you just wouldn't be
so beautiful
As the sun
When it shines
All over the world
We're pilots watching stars
The world pre-occupied
We're pilots watching stars
Who do we think we are?
Ice and clouds
Shimmer outside
Rain just falls
At magic hour
It's just the sound
Of you and me
Time twitching
Murmurs of our
friendly machine
We're pilots watching stars
The world pre-occupied
We're pilots watching stars
Who do we think we are?
Yes, who do...?
It's just the sound
Of you and me

An ode to nature, space, stars, the sun, and the couple. "Murmurs of our / friendly machine” hints at a harmonic and beneficial relationship between human and machine.

We're being "piloted" through the story of the album - but where? And is the machine something as familiar and mundane as the hinted-at clock (Time twitching) - or is it, as I suspect, something more menacing and laboratory-like?

Deer Stop

And I long to go
Love started. TT (?) Here
Shoot your star
Be a light
If that
Don't you call (it?)
Deer stop bottle in a shell
Shoot (yourself?) so many stars over me
(singing in tunnel) *
You've arrested a knight *
Say my name whisper it
Whisper it
Don't ever tempt +
I am deliciously wired
I am falling in a cloud
(Don't you - indecipherable)
Shoot a thousand stars over
(wail)
Say my name
Whisper it

* Always on the Net has: Love to come home / You've arrested a knight, although I can only hear the latter.

+ Same source has "turn" instead of "tempt"; again, I hear the latter.

The most disturbing track. If it doesn't creep you out, I want to know why.

This track seems to me to be a significant climax to the idea Goldfrapp are playing with of fusing human and machine. During the track Allison Goldfrapp's voice is severely distorted, and at times the line between human voice and musical instrument is indecipherable (see approximately 2:54 - 3:05, where the singer's voice travels from human to machine to human again).

There are significantly more lyrics than given in the album sleeve notes.

Deer Stop's tone is deeply melancholic, starting off sweetly, with a slow, calm, measured pace. But there's an odd, discordant noise from 2:13 to approximately 2:20 that foreshadows the breakdown (2:54 - 3:05) to come.

This jarring noise where the singer's voice breaks down from what little coherence we previously grasped at: from 2:54

The words no longer matter at this point, as they're so technically distorted. “Shoot a thousand stars over” - the voice is reduced to pure noise now. Then comes the wail - an eerie cry from approximately 3:30 to 3:53. It is a noise of pure emotion, verging on, if not stepping well into, the irrational.

Or perhaps not irrational - perhaps (and this is worse) it is a completely rational response to something that's been done to the narrator (or something the narrator has done). At any rate, the mournful wailer is in pain, although not only pain. Perhaps it's just the pain of confusion.

(Image 2) Musical instrument and organic instrument come the closest to (con)fusion on "Deer Stop".

Reading the lyrics that are provided is pointless here; the words are deliberately warped, echoed, distorted and re-shaped. The syllables are sung so that they slide into each other. Everything is generally indecipherable, making "Deer Stop" the track most hostile to interpretation on the album.

However, one thing is clear. The idea in the line I am deliciously wired is picked up again in the penultimate track.

Felt Mountain

(No lyrics, although some singing.)

This song's opening plays upon stereotypes of yoddling hikers - but in a playful, lighthearted manner.

The song is very much like something you'd hear in a theatre - perhaps in the overture before the start of the play. It reflects the performative arts background of Allison Goldfrapp. [3] This is stage-music.

The singer is reduced—or restored?—from her formerly disturbed self in Deer Stop to a simplistic, untroubled yoddelling child.

Oompa Radar

(No lyrics, although some singing.)

A Willy Wonka reference? Why not? Goldfrapp do have a sense of humor, although I haven't touched upon this.

The band must've been having a rollicking good time with Oompa Radar, because this Fellini-esque track meanders in a circusy way for 4 minutes and 42 seconds—about 2 minutes too long.

Again, our singer-narrator is in a childlike state, oblivious to the pain she recently expressed in Deer Stop. It's more picking-daisies-in-a-field-everything's-all-right singing.

Has our narrator forgottten the pain she just expressed? What are we to make of it? Is she drugged-out? Lobotomized? Whatever has happened, she's in a radically different state of mind, but the nightmarish quality of the carnival music hints that all is not well. Still.

The album continues to lure us down the narrative path in autistic fits and starts. Then comes "Utopia".

Utopia

This song is the album's most overtly narrative and evocative track.

Just when you think autistic theatre is all there is, along comes the hit from this album, "Utopia." Utopia is a sudden—and unexpected—flow of articulation.

The band generously lay down more of a narrative, providing clues as to what might be going on:

It's a strange day
No colours or shapes
No sound in my head
I forget who I am
When I'm with you
There's no reason
There's no sense
I'm not supposed
To feel
I forget who I am
I forget

Fascist baby
Utopia, utopia

My dog needs new ears
Make his eyes
See forever
Make him live
Like me
Again and again

Fascist baby
Utopia, utopia

I'm wired to the world
That's how I know everything
I'm superbrain
That's how they made me

Fascist baby
Utopia, utopia

We remain firmly in the surreal landscape of "Felt Mountain", so we're still kept off-balance; however, at least there's some explanatory lyrics that seem to give us a foothold.

In fact, one wonders if all the previous tracks were some sort of exposition leading up to "Utopia", so different in feel is this song. Are we returning to a more logical and comprehensible world with this track? Yes, it appears we have the familiarity of the "love story" to hang onto here. But wait...

It's a strange day (you can say that again)
No colours or shapes (doesn't sound pleasant...)
No sound in my head (hmmm. something's wrong here)
I forget who I am (that doesn't sound good...)
When I'm with you (oh, so there's a guy making you feel this way, eh?)
There's no reason (a common complaint of love-sick people!)
There's no sense (we've all been there)
I'm not supposed (yes...?)
To feel (why not? something taboo here?)
I forget who I am (uh-oh.)
I forget (loss of identity - red alert! red alert!)

If this is a love story, it is one that threatens the narrator's very identity.

The next stanza combines the animal themes introduced earlier on the album with the Frankenstein motif from the very first track: the narrator wants her dog upgraded (My dog needs new ears / Make his eyes / See forever) and preserved (Make him live / Like me / Again and again).

This last part is an important clue: the lovely head, the Frankenstein reference, the strange sense of the narrator's inability to act, and someone causing her pain - all these details combine to give the impression that the narrator has been undergoing surgery; perhaps body parts are being grafted onto her, as her request (to her surgeon?) for her dog suggests.

There is another aspect of the dog stanza that opens up the logic of Felt Mountain's world: there seems to be the rationale that if you love something or someone, you will want them to be operated on, improved upon, and preserved - that whatever is scientifically achievable is inherently good, and should be carried out as a matter of course. Consultation with the subject (in this case, a dog, but you see where I'm going here) is unnecessary. There is a goodness to chopping and changing body parts. There are no problematic ethical or emotional issues.

But as listeners, we are aware there are problematic ethical issues to every scientific advance made, especially those surrounding the human body. And, just like in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, the searing voice throughout the album indicates that, while the operation(s) may have been a success, there is an internal scarring that is permanent.

And if you're a feminist listener, you're doubly aware of how the female body is particularly singled out as a site for surgical invasion.

(Image 3) Something meant to improve your exterior could be killing your interior.

This song rivals Deer Stop for sheer eerieness, yet Utopia's narrative lyrics - so clearly enunciated by Allison Goldfrapp - make for more comfortable listening. It also offers optimism and hope. If you listen to the seven tracks previous, hitting "Utopia" is like emerging from a cave and having fresh mountain air hit your face - or like you've been lost in the woods and enter a clearing. The music is triumphant, omniscient, and optimistic about technology (I'm superbrain / That's how they made me).

Googling "superbrain" results in a number of tempting meanings Goldfrapp may have been referencing. It also gives a knowing nod to Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. See also the "Brave New World argument":

“Biologist Stuart Newman and bioconservative activist Jeremy Rifkin argue, like the majority of precautionists, that since genetic engineering could lead to the manufacturing and enslavement of "monsters" such as human clones, designer babies or human-animal hybrids (see Frankenstein, The Island of Dr. Moreau and Brave New World for fictional depictions of these scenarios), strict measures should be implemented to prevent these dehumanizing projects from ever happening, usually in the form of an international criminal ban on human genetic engineering.”

Utopia is expansive in feeling, completely freeing the listener from the claustraphobia on the previous tracks. The lyrical flow is also a release.

Horse Tears

Night has fallen
Mute and cold
My horse is crying
But you know there is time
But you know there is time
But you'll never learn
Keep you safe
Dare to come
But you love me still
But you'll never learn
Tears to come
You have dammed me
But you're the one
That you're forever
And they stare
But you know
That there's strength
And you love a knight
Who stewed out those tears
Years to come
But you love the tears
And you love the tears

This romantic song comes as a coda after the powerful "Utopia". There may be a theme here with the knight, as a knight is also mentioned in "Deer Stop". The overall feeling is sadness, and a sort of pointless circularity (the repeated la-la-la-ing).

The song suggests some sort of unavoidable fate has come to pass, resulting in misery.

Had Felt Mountain ended on "Utopia", the overall message of "Felt Mountain" would've been very different; it doesn't, though, and we're left wondering the ride was all about.

Conclusion

As I hope I've made clear in this essay, it's not just music Goldfrapp offer with this album - it's a distinct and mysterious world.

I cannot definitively support some of my claims, because there is very little foundational surface upon which to set my interpretations. But the lack of any concrete meaning is the whole point of the album, and it remains pleasantly ambiguous even after all my analysis. The album is an exercise in moving through a shadowy world of consciousness.

When I state that I feel that, in these songs, there is a binding narrative of a weird consciousness grafted onto another consciousness, I cannot point to any one line that supports this claim. It's just a feeling I have, every time I listen to Felt Mountain.

If the mind is grafted, the body has lost its integrity as well. Both mind and body are corrupted, and only nature can provide a temporary salvo.

There's also a motif of belly, heart and mouths on at least two of the tracks ("Lovely Head" and "Human"). There seems to be a preoccupation with not being able to control what goes in the mouth, or what tumbles out. I haven't explored this thematic anxiety about losing control of bodily gateways.

(Image 4)“No colours or shapes / No sound in my head” Allison Goldfrapp extends her vocal performance with this visual performance on the album's inside sleeve. The sitter's passivity and internal focus, the cuts on her knees and other details, encourage the link between the album's visual and lyrical content, while expanding on Felt Mountain's meanings. [3]

What I find most disturbing is the veneer of retro-hyper-femininity that cracks to reveal psychic pain. Allison Goldfrapp's vocal style suggests the singer is the ideal of beauty and femininity. Her vocal delivery promises an umproblematic, simplistic, and unified feminine personna. It is held out like a beacon to the listener. But it cracks, over and over, to reveal a disjointed narrator who is desperate and raging. [4]

As with all analysis, dissection does a kind of violence to the work. If I performed my own surgery on Felt Mountain and made it less than appealing, I want to emphasize that this is an enjoyable album. The limitations of text mean I cannot convey the beauty in the music, nor the inventive and risky decisions Alison Goldfrapp takes with her singing.

Understand Goldfrapp? I don't pretend to, although this piece was obviously an attempt to tease out some answers.

It's the most fun I've ever had with a riddle.

Goldfrapp's single, Ride a White Horse, was released February 13, 2006.

Images

Image 1: Back sleeve to “Felt Mountain”, Label: Mute, Release date: Sep 19, 2000; scanned by Sour Duck.

Image 2: From Always On the Run.net, Felt Mountain page.

Image 3: Vogue, January 2006, "Extraordinary machines" (pg. 148). Photography by Steven Klein. Magazine copy reads: “Would you be massaged by a robot? Or trust a manicure to a machine? Ying Chu explores the new techno-obsessed world of twenty-first century beauty.” Scanned by Sour Duck.

Image 4: Picture of Allison Goldfrapp, inside sleeve, “Felt Mountain”; scan by Sour Duck.

Notes

[1] I've never been comfortable referring to CDs - it sounds wrong to my ear - so throughout this essay I will be using the word "album" (although I was listening to a CD). (back)

[2] Other pop culture references that convey a similar sense of terror and fear of the unexplainable: The Pit and the Pendulum, and Don't Look Now. If you're looking for literature, see the previously cited Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Henry James' The Turn of the Screw, and, for surgical (and other kinds of) horror, see Katherine Dunn's Geek Love. (back)

[3] See Allmusic Guide's biography on Allison Goldfrapp: "Bath, England's singer/composer/keyboardist Allison Goldfrapp began exploring music as a part of her studies as a Fine Art Painting major at Middlesex University, mixing sound, visuals, and performances in her installation pieces." (back)

[4] It's been noted by feminist scholars that when a man's story is being analyzed, the themes are deemed universal and therefore more weighty and lofty; whereas when a woman's story is analyzed, the scope and significance of the themes are narrowed and restricted to one gender. I hope I am not part of this problem - I think there are universal themes in Felt Mountain. However, it's hard to ignore the exaggeratedly feminine personna Allison Goldfrapp has created; therefore, my analysis at times addresses the themes in terms of gender, rather than through a more universalizing lens. (back)

[5] Under the Wikipedia entry for Dashiell Hammett is a citation of the 1991 film, Barton Fink, as an example of a script-doctor's plight working for the studios in the 1930s. Following the link, the synopsis describes a character in the film: "Charlie is later revealed to be the alter-ego of Karl 'Madman' Mundt, a serial killer with a penchant for decapitating his victims." "Brown paper bag makes for a hat"... or "brown paper bag for your head”? (Or, more comically, for "your head, mate".) The link is tenuous. However, until I listened closely to the album, I thought the line from Paper Bag was the latter - thinking partly of Barton Fink. (Although I haven't seen the film, someone told me about the head-in-a-bag.) I think Goldfrapp knowingly play upon the catalogue of cultural references listeners carry around in their heads. Goldfrapp seem to prefer not to drop direct references (with the exception of "Frankenstein"); and because some of these associations are so strong, they prove right in not doing so. (back)

Related links:

• Reviews of Felt Mountain:
• Allmusic Guide
• Flak magazine
• musicOMH.com
• Amazon
• Wikipedia entries:
• Felt Mountain
• Goldfrapp
• BBC profile page
• Goldfrapp official site
• Goldfrapp moblog (RSS feed)

All lyrics transcribed from album liner notes by Sour Duck; Always on the Run Net consulted for additional lyrics.

If you like Goldfrapp's "Felt Mountain", you might also like Slowdive, Portishead , and Mercury Rev.

tags: Goldfrapp | Allison Goldfrapp | Felt Mountain | Mary Shelley | Frankenstein