Goldfrapp's Personal Best

ALISON: I was listening to this song again recently and I actually felt quite emotional about it, which hit me quite suddenly. I was like, ‘Oh, god yeah, I really like this,’ and I’ve been wanting to make a film to it. I’d love to go to a frozen lake in Sweden or somewhere and make a little two-minute film for “Alvar”. I think that’d be good.

WILL: Yeah, it would be. I love the film that you did for “Yellow Halo”. I'd actually forgotten about “Alvar”.

ALISON: Really?

WILL: I mean, some songs just pop out of my brain. But since you talked about it the other day, I haven’t been able to get the tune out of my head.

ALISON: It’s funny, because I don’t really like my vocal very much on it, actually, but I really like the guitars. There’s a moment in the song where the guitars really swell up and then it goes into this backwards vocal, and I just love that. There’s something really satisfying about it. I also love the rhythm of it. There’s a sort of lolling, rocking momentum to the whole thing, which I think is really nice. The melody is really lovely.

WILL: I remember buying this funny little Indian guitar that looks a bit like an ironing board with strings, which you pluck, but then it also has these typewriter-like keys on it that you fret. I think that’s what give the song this slightly hypnotic sound.

ALISON: It has a sort of metallic sound to it, hasn’t it? I really like that.

WILL: Yes, and it’s kind of raw. Some Indian instruments have that quality. Western instruments can sound a bit too perfect sometimes.

ALISON: Alex Lee is playing on this song too, isn’t he?

WILL: Yeah, he’s playing a lot of the other guitars. He’s a great player. He did a really nice job.

ALISON: I think I need to learn to sing backwards. I always think I prefer my voice when it's backwards. It's normal. I did try singing backwards once, but I’m not sure how successful it was. Maybe it's time to try it again.

WILL: Didn’t you learn something that was backwards?

ALISON: Yeah, I sang and recorded it backwards, and then I tried to do it backwards live as well. But, yeah, going back to “Alvar”, I’m just really into it these days. I kind of want to hear it again right after this interview.

BEST FIT: I read that this song was inspired by a trip to you took to Iceland.

ALISON: Yeah, somewhere cold and dramatic.

WILL: Was that the time you went down into a volcano?

ALISON: Oh, yeah, I did. I went into a volcano. I did some quite wild things out there. I remember swimming in between the two tectonic plates, which was amazing. Water was a big feature for me around that time, as it often has been in my life. I’m very fond of water, which is why I like the Stockholm archipelago so much. I love islands. I’m not very keen on looking at just a horizon, like when you go to a beach and there’s nothing but water. That makes me feel a bit weird. I like being able to see some land across the water, you know? Sorry, I’m going off-piste!

I like the darkness of Tales of Us. Sometimes I think I find it a little bit overly earnest in place, but I really like a lot of the instrumentation and the drama of it all. I know we’re talking about “Alvar”, but can I say this? This is the opportunity I feel. I fucking hate TV. I’ve hated every performance I’ve ever done on TV. I cannot cope with it. I’m terrible. I get these panic attacks and it’s really traumatic, so I’m have huge admiration for anyone who can just turn up on TV and suddenly perform. I just cannot do it. But the one and only performance where I felt like I was good was performing “Annabel” from Tales of Us on Jools Holland. I watched it again recently and thought, ‘Yep, it’s still good.’ We had a little string quartet, didn’t we Will?

WILL: Yeah, and I remember for some of the shows on that tour, everyone was barefoot. But it's interesting, going back to what you said about earnestness. I think, very often, if you make a strong statement – if you're just putting something out there very, very strongly and you're not hedging your bets at all – it can sometimes backfire and appear earnest, but do I think the gesture is always coming from a really good place.

ALISON: Yes, I think that's really true, and I think it's worth it for that.

WILL: Yeah, definitely. I don't have antibodies to anything on Tales of Us in that way. Again, it was a kind of antidote, wasn't it? Because with Head First we’d gone into this shiny pop world.

ALISON: That wasn’t quite shiny enough, or something.

WILL: Yeah, or not quite rough enough.

ALISON: Yeah. That's not my proudest moment, although I do think some of the tunes are great.

WILL: Yes. I forgive us for it.

ALISON: I’ve actually found it very therapeutic playing “Rocket” live recently, which sort of gave me hope for that song again.

WILL: There was quite a long period when that song was kind of persona non grata, wasn't there?

ALISON: Oh my god, yeah. I was deeply in shame. I whipped myself at night. Why? Why?! But no, I've got over that now.