Goldfrapp
Felt Mountain
Mute

Boasting a resumé that includes session work with Tricky, Peter Gabriel and Orbital, it was only logical for white-hot singer Alison Goldfrapp to release an album under her own name.

But Felt Mountain, Goldfrapp's stunning, noirish debut, carries a caveat. In the same tradition of PJ Harvey — originally a band with a lead singer named Polly Jean Harvey — the artist known as Goldfrapp is really a collaboration between two people, singer/keyboardist Goldfrapp and film-score composer/keyboardist Will Gregory.

The album, with its monster movie organs and James Bond-style crooning, benefits greatly from Gregory's movie know-how. It seeps great film scores from every pore, whether it be the unmistakable mark of John Barry (the Bond films), Fellini-collaborator Nino Rota or David Lynch's favorite, Angelo Badlamenti.

But the duo stretches far outside of the world of arty movies. Felt Mountain also wears the badge of influences as diverse as Bjork, Harvey, Fiona Apple and Portishead. A glance through the album's impressive list of session musicians reads like a Who's Who in Woman-Fronted Hipster Rock — Nick Batt (best known for his excellent remix job on Suzanne Vega's "Tom's Diner"), Portishead's Adrian Utley and Harvey collaborator John Parish are among the supporting cast.

In addition to its gamut-spanning inspirations and ability to conjure images ranging from circus freaks to brightly colored robot dancers, Felt Mountain remains an enchanting, accessible debut. Its range of inspirations and cross-pollinations succeeds mightily, the only exception being the schmaltzy, tepid "Pilots," which is sadly sandwiched between two of the album's best songs, "Human" and "Deer Stop."

With its eerie, shiver-inducing strings, showtuney horn section and industrial-meets-drum-and-bass Latin rhythms, "Human" sounds like something you might find on a Bjork album, but Goldfrapp's sexy growl — sounding a bit like Fiona Apple — gives the song an added sexual gruffness the Icelandic warbler would be hard-pressed to match. This surprisingly-daring-yet-easy-to-listen-to genre-bender is easily the disc's standout track.

But that's not to say the others aren't terrific, too. The circusy late-album treat "Oompa Radar" could easily crop up on remakes of Pee Wee's Big Adventure, City of Lost Children or any other film featuring strangely proportioned actors and goofy camera angles. An otherworldly brass band alternates with Goldfrapp's minimalist onomatopoeia. The song even features a flugel horn solo and a cuckoo clock that's used to switch between tempos.

"Horse Tears," with its minimalist piano, cheap monster-movie organ and filtered vocals, is the perfect bookend, an ending that leaves its listener in a state of rapt contentedness, yet somehow wanting more.

— Eric Wittmershaus (ericw at flakmag dot com)