| Goldfrapp are the Tricky and Orbital collaborator Alison Goldfrapp and film composer Will Gregory.
Their debut album Felt Mountain, which was nominated for the 2001 Mercury Music Prize, is a lush,
sexy and beautiful work of art. Evoking 60s film noir soundtracks (and yes, Portishead's Adrian Utley
worked on the album, so we can get that comparison out of the way), it is supposed to reflect the sinister beauty
of the countryside. It was recorded in the Wiltshire countryside near Bath, and their first performance was in a pub in Bristol.
Their music features strange analogue noises, harpsichords,
strings and brass, disturbing whistles and yodelling and piles of audio trickery, all interwoven with Alison's delicious vocals.
Her voice ranges from
a fragile, delicate soprano to a dirty growl while the lyrics are seductive and surreal.
Nevertheless, whatever vocal gymnastics she attempts, and whatever mad trickery Will Gregory is performing with the sounds, their
music retains a simple beauty. They do not feature any samples in their work, with all sounds original recordings.
People in the UK are likely to have heard their track Lovely Head on the One2One mobile phone commercial that features Gary Oldman. | 
