Interrogation

Your new record, Seventh Tree, is a pretty marked departure for Goldfrapp. Can you discuss why it turned out the way it did?

I think we wanted to put more space back into the music. You know,
we’d been touring for [2006 album] Supernature a lot, and it was
fantastic, it was good fun, but I think we kind of wanted to bring back
some space. Everything was very banging the whole time; every available
space was filled up with a little synth sound or something popping or
exploding. We wanted to pull back from that. There’s something very
satisfying about stripping everything away and just focusing on
something very small and intimate, which is kind of how I felt
emotionally as well.

With the new record, you’ve talked about themes of animal
mythology and used the owl head masks in the photos. How are those
ideas present on the record?

They’ve always been there, you know, I think they’re just part of
our psyche and my psyche, and it’s just part of our visual
language.

Do you have a specific intention with the image of the
owl?

Yeah, I do, but I can’t quite put my finger on it yet, what it
exactly is. I think maybe the owl represents this quiet kind of thing
that’s kind of around—you know it’s there, but you don’t
necessarily see it. And I guess it has all these connotations in
children’s books, like the wise old owl. I think there’s something very
peaceful about it, sort of fascinating that it’s got this kind of
presence about it.

They’re also vicious predators.

[Laughs] Yeah. I don’t know. But that’s what’s so brilliant
about animals in drawings and literature and paintings—they
always kind of symbolize something, and you don’t always know what it
is really.

A lot of your career has dealt with sexual imagery and
energy. Do you think that the relationship of sex to your work has
changed with this new record?

Yes [laughs]. Yes, I do, I do. Yes.

Can you describe how?

I don’t really know, because it’s sort of a very tangible thing and
a subjective thing. But I did get bored of this image I created for
myself. I got bored of people expecting me to look and behave in a
certain way 24/7. I got bored of looking at images of other people,
highly sexed sort of images. And I got bored of people talking to me
constantly about my shoes. I mean, I invented that image for myself,
I’m not blaming anyone else for it. It’s not that I dislike that image;
I just think I wanted the sexuality to be expressed in a different way,
a softer way. Also, there are a lot of things that have happened in my
life personally that kind of… it just felt like it didn’t match what
I was feeling and what I had been through. It wasn’t working for me
anymore.

I was curious what you think about the music that you
came up around a long time ago, acts like Orbital and Tricky—what
you thought at the time or what you think about it
now.

What do I think about it now? Orbital—I just did it because it
was fun and because I knew them, and also it payed the rent. And,
Tricky, I mean, you know, [it was a] great experience. I felt I learned
a lot from doing all of those things. I’m not going to comment on what
I think of them artistically or creatively.

Are there any specific musical touchstones for this
record?

Whole loads of shit. It’s funny, ’cause I always listen to new
things, but quite often it’s the things I listened to when I was really
young that still have the strongest influence. I sort of went back to
listening to a lot of Minnie Ripperton when we were first starting to
write the album. It was something I listened to a lot, years ago. Like
Come to My Garden is one of my all-time favorite albums. And
things like Nick Drake. Films have always been a big inspiration as
well. The visual is very much a part of what inspires our writing
process, as much as music.

Are there specific films that were particularly
inspirational for this record?

A lot of American ’70s road-trip movies—Badlands. I
think a lot of this album is about traveling and being on a journey of
some sort, either physically or mentally or both—a lot of light
and hazy sunshine and long roads. As well as very English kinds of
things like The Wicker Man… My brain is gone, actually, kind
of melted.

Are you touring right now?

I just got back from a week’s holiday, but yeah, we are on tour. And
it’s teatime here. Teatime… I’m sorry.

Goldfrapp play Wed Sept 17, Showbox Sodo, 8 pm, $22.50 adv/$25
DOS, all ages.