The world had heard Alison Goldfrapp before, providing guest vocals on albums from Tricky and Orbital, but we hadn't really heard her until Felt Mountain burst onto the scene, late in 2000. A stunning collaboration between the vocalist, who lent her name to the project, and film composer Will Gregory, Goldfrapp's music offered an intoxicating mixture of science fiction imagery and turn of the (Twentieth) century glamour -- rather like a musical version of Brave New World mounted in pre-WWI Berlin. And in Alison Goldfrapp, the group had a first class figurehead -- a volatile but hyper-stylish über-diva for the new millennium.

Splendid was eager to interview Goldfrapp and Gregory from the moment we heard Felt Mountain, but we never expected them to amount to much in a live setting. You can imagine our surprise when we witnessed the five-piece Goldfrapp ensemble's performance at NoisePop Chicago 2001, at which they actually managed to recreate -- and surpass -- the album's sound and mood. This revelatory experience launched a mission, and we spent the next seven months of pestering Goldfrapp's label, Mute, for an interview with Alison, Will or ideally both of them.

In the months since seeing Goldfrapp, I'd heard several rumors that Alison was...well, a bit of a challenging interview, so it was with some trepidation that I awaited my telephone conversation with Alison -- who, I learned, was already irritable due to a nagging cold. Would our conversation further piss her off, or would I provide a redeeming ray of sunlight in her otherwise dark and gloomy day?

I think you can guess the answer.

Splendid: I'd like to start by asking about the time between what we all know about... I know that you recorded with Tricky and Orbital, and I know then that you hooked up with Will... Were you actively pursuing your music during that time? And what route did those compositions take, if you were?

Alison Goldfrapp: I sort of was actively seeking it... When I did that stuff with Tricky, I was sort of trying out stuff, really, and learning my craft. And when I say learning my craft, I mean learning about the music business -- watching other people, the way they did things, technical things, and just playing around with my voice, seeing what it could do. I'd been singing already for quite a long time, but that was the first time I'd been involved in anything near what you'd call "pop" music, so it was really just trying out stuff. I've never really wanted to tread the normal route, as it were. It's taken me a while to do what I wanted to do, 'cos I've always kind of had an opinion that I want to do things the way that I want to do them, and it can't be any different. That sometimes takes time. It has been a sort of slow road to getting here -- but it was worth it.

Splendid: The reason I asked the question is because I was going over your press kit yesterday and it mentioned that you had passed a tape of your own compositions along to Will, and I was wondering what instruments you play, how you recorded it...

Alison Goldfrapp: The way we met was that he had a very early version of "Human"...

Splendid: So that's what he got early on.

Alison Goldfrapp: Yeah, that's how we met. He liked it.

Splendid: So what role did you take in the composition? Was it mostly you devising the route that your vocals would take, and he fleshed out the music --

Alison Goldfrapp: (After a brief, awkward pause, rather angrily) You know, I get really fucked off when people have such conventional ideas of how we write. We write everything together.

Splendid: I wasn't trying to imply that one of you went off and did one thing while the other did something else; I was just curious as to how the balance works, because it turns out so interestingly.

Alison Goldfrapp: (Calming down) Well, it's a difficult thing to explain, really... I can't really explain it. Do you know what I mean? We write everything together, and we do different things at different times.

Splendid: So you sequester yourselves in a bungalow, or wherever you're working, and it just kind of...comes out?

Alison Goldfrapp: Yeah, we just write when we're together in a room, and it sort of happens.

Splendid: It can be hard to explain how things come together --

Alison Goldfrapp: I mean, Will's the one who's usually working the computer, because I'm not really interested in that. But we have a room full of machines, and we just kind of get in the room and turn them on. We usually improvise a lot at the beginning, and then slowly something will evolve from that -- or sometimes I'll have a lyrical idea, and sometimes it comes from a visual idea. And sometimes we start much more conventionally, and sit down at the piano. But really, there's no format to the way we work.

Splendid: I assume that open format means that you don't rule any ideas out, which allows your songs to go in very different directions.

Alison Goldfrapp: Yeah. I like to think that we're about doing whatever we feel like doing, really.

Splendid: No limitations placed on the process.

Alison Goldfrapp: Yeah. To me it's just about the music. Music's either good, or it's not.

Splendid: It seems to have worked out well for you. And it seems like a lot of your own interests beyond music are really manifest in Goldfrapp, too -- the whole Weimar Republic reference, for instance. How many of your own interests are tied into the group's sound and general presentation?

Alison Goldfrapp: The Weimar Republic thing is a funny one, really, 'cos I am interested in that, but it's something that the press have caught onto much more than me. There are so many things -- I don't want to put emphasis on any one in particular, really.

Splendid: Okay. Moving on... the press likes to make comparisons, and I imagine the inevitable Portishead references have become rather tiresome for you. Do you see any substance in the comparison?

Alison Goldfrapp: I think that comparison is always made when someone is doing something that's a bit left of center, has a female vocalist, and is slow.

Splendid: And that's all there is to it?

Alison Goldfrapp: Yes. Those three things will get you compared to Portishead.

Splendid: How difficult was it to take your show on the road? I saw you in May, when you were in Chicago, and I know that a lot of people, assuming your technical requirements were complex and you would have to travel light, were really very surprised at how well you pulled off the songs -- not because you couldn't, but just because it seemed like such a challenge. Was it? And how long did it take you to prepare for all of that?

Alison Goldfrapp: The first thing was what do we play on stage -- we're talking right at the beginning here. Secondly, it was just getting to grips with being on stage; now I'm much more comfortable playing on stage, much more relaxed, and it feels like the songs have taken on their own life, whereas right at the beginning we were so pleased just to get from A to B... It's quite different now, I think, live; we still do the same thing but it feels a lot more like its own thing rather than just four people on stage playing songs, if you see what I mean. But yeah, right at the beginning, it was something that made us stop and say "Bloody hell! Is it going to work live? Is it going to translate live? Are people going to want to stand there and listen to this?" It really has its own energy live, and in some ways I think it works better. I don't quite know why, but it breathes an energy into it. It has really given the songs a chance to sort of live, because we really were writing them, recording them, mixing them as we were going along...

Splendid: Yeah, they seem like such studio-bound songs.

Alison Goldfrapp: Yes. We've written a couple of new tunes, and it's the same thing -- once you've really played a song, it starts to take on its own life, and that's what's so nice about playing live. There's an energy there that you just can't get in the studio.

Splendid: Not to mention the immediate feedback from the audience.

Alison Goldfrapp: Yeah. It changes every night -- we'll play a song and there'll be rapturous applause, and then the next night we'll play exactly the same song exactly the same way and everyone will stand there with their mouths open and wonder what the fuck's going on. It's such an intangible thing.

Splendid: Are there any songs that have changed so much for you as you've done them live that you almost wish you could go back and re-record them, taking in the influence from the live setting?

Alison Goldfrapp: Not really, not. Uhmmm... yes. There is, really -- one of the new songs. But that's okay, because it's not recorded really, anyway; we just recorded a rough version of it before we went out and played it. That'll be quite interesting, really, seeing what happens to it when we actually go to record it. I think it might be more difficult, actually.

Splendid: I'm surprised to hear that you're already that deep into new material --

Alison Goldfrapp: Well, we're not that deep into new material. We've just gotten to write a couple of new songs. We've been so busy -- we just haven't had any time. We're really hoping to get started on another album in December or January, and really get stuck in. We've just been grabbing little moments here and there, which isn't very suitable to creating music.

Splendid: And I'm sure you can't write on the road.

Alison Goldfrapp: No, we don't write on the road. We can't.

Splendid: Your process, as you've described it, sounds like it requires an enormous investment of time.

Alison Goldfrapp: Yeah, and it'll take a lot of time for us to get our heads back into that space. You know, it's like when you're a writer, and you've got a blank page there in front of you, and you've got to write a whole load of crap before interesting things start happening.

Splendid: You mentioned that it was difficult for you to go on stage, at first. I noticed from your performance, that the way you deliver your vocals -- especially with the two extra microphones -- it seemed like it would be a very powerful performance, and one that depends upon the technical stuff working, which adds an extra layer of challenge.

Alison Goldfrapp: That's true. It does. Sometimes that can be a little bit stifling, but I think it's worth it. And that also creates tension as well, which is quite nice.

Splendid: Like being on stage as an actor -- that spontaneity.

Alison Goldfrapp: I think it's just that tension, that something could go wrong at any minute -- in a way I quite like that.

Splendid: Have you found yourself in a situation where you had to improvise your way out of a technical problem?

Alison Goldfrapp: (In a voice that suggests it didn't go well) Uhh, yeah.

Splendid: Well, then, I won't ask you to relive that experience.

Alison Goldfrapp: It wasn't much fun. But it happens.

Splendid: That's why you're up on the stage and you know what you're doing.

Alison Goldfrapp: Well, sometimes.

Splendid: I'd like to ask you about "Physical"... It's an entertaining cover, and obviously people liked it enough that it justified being released as part of the reissue of Felt Mountain. What made you choose that song?

Alison Goldfrapp: Lots of people asked us "Why don't you do a cover?" And we were like, "Oh, no, not a cover!" And the challenge of it just became more appealing. "Physical" is one of those songs that's always been in the back of my head -- it's one of the songs where everyone says, "Oh, that's ridiculous," but everyone remembers it. I like that. And I love that chorus -- the ridiculousness of it. At the same time, it has a real kind of... reverberation?

Splendid: Resonance?

Alison Goldfrapp: Yeah! It's weird. It's sort of naff, but...

Splendid: It's one of those songs that gets into your head even though you probably don't want it there.

Alison Goldfrapp: Yeah! Everyone remembers it because of the video, and it just has this whole kind of thing around it that's funny. Well, not just funny, but it was still alive. I also liked the fact that it was so unlike what we were doing. And I think that's the challenge of doing a cover -- taking something that maybe isn't anything to do with what you're doing, and turning it into something that is what you're doing. Know what I mean?

Splendid: Yeah. Forcing it into your mold. Making it your own.

Alison Goldfrapp: Yeah. And I liked that idea. Yeah. And for me, it's the idea that Goldfrapp is about whatever we want it to be about, really, and not getting caught up in other people's idea of what we're about. The thing is to keep doing things that give you a little kick up the arse. But it's good fun to do live -- it's a lighter moment in our set.

Splendid: I was certainly very surprised when I saw it, as I don't think it had leaked out yet that you were doing it. I remember the audience being taken by surprise, and I'm sure that pleased you.

Alison Goldfrapp: Yeah. That's kind of worn off since then, obviously, but when we first started doing it, we'd get this big gasp from the audience -- it was worth doing just for that.

Splendid: On the same performance-related issue, I noticed also something about your University days, and that during your pre-Goldfrapp days you were involved in performance and installation art and some rather extravagant things like that -- more outer-range performance things. Would you ever consider, if your touring budget permitted it, a more exotic or elaborate staging?

Alison Goldfrapp: Yeah. Maybe not in the sense that you might think... I'd really like to have some film going at some point, and I've always been a bit "anti" that, because I think that people should look at the musicians while they're making the music -- I've never really been into visual aids like that, but at some point I'd like to try doing it. And also it'd be nice to have...oh, I don't know. Quite often I imagine this Fellini-esque, elaborate, decadent stage with fountains and snow and women in tit-tassels and synchronized swimmers... revolving black-lacquered stages and Busby Berkeley dance routines and stuff like that...

Splendid: One final question: a lot of people have suggested that you should be tapped to provide music for a future James Bond film. I'm sure you're tired of hearing it, but I'm curious how you'd feel about it -- after all, there's one coming up next year.

Alison Goldfrapp: Oh, I think it would be good fun. Know what I mean? I do know people who've been offered that stuff before, and have turned it down, and that's very cool of them, but I'm not very cool. So I'd probably say yeah.

Splendid: It seems like, particularly in the UK, that would be one of a small number of cultural institutions that it would be almost impossible to turn down, even for art's sake.

Alison Goldfrapp: I just think it'd be good fun. Maybe that's not cool to do something like that, but I'm not cool. I just can't see saying no, really, but then I can't see us being asked -- it's one of those weird things where until you're asked, you don't really know. I think it's one of those things that everyone thinks is so obvious, but no-one's asked us yet.

Splendid: It also seems like such a great opportunity to create an enduring piece of music, because even the worst pieces of music they've used have lived on far beyond the careers of the people who've made them.

Alison Goldfrapp: Well, it would be really nice to create a song specifically for something like that -- that'd be a real challenge. I keep using that word, challenge, and it's starting to annoy me, actually -- fucking challenge. It'd be just -- yeah, fuck challenge. It'd be good. You're right -- what's so great and good fun about doing something for a James Bond film is that it requires writing quite an anthemic song, and I like anthemic tunes, so it'd be a good excuse to get in there with a full orchestra, and hopefully write something that was really good. Ultimately, that's what you'd be trying to do -- write something that would fit.

Splendid: And with David Arnold behind the music for those now, it seems like it might be more accessible to younger musicians and less obvious choices.

Alison Goldfrapp: I hope so. Again, I don't think people really know much about us, so maybe they wouldn't ask us for that reason.

Splendid: So everyone should send David Arnold a copy of Felt Mountain?

Alison Goldfrapp: Yeah, that'd be nice.