Customer Reviews
Enter a Total Relaxing Utopia!!!! - By: Ronnie, 13 Apr 2008 
1. Lovely Head. 10/10
2. Paper Bag. 8/10
3. Human. 10/10
4. Pilots. 10/10
5. Deer Stop. 5/10*
6. Felt Mountain. 9/10
7. Oompa Radar. 9/10
8. Utopia. 10/10
9. Horse Tears 9/10
* OUCH!!! Totallly PAINFUL!!!!
If you like "Supernature", "Black Cherry", & "Seventh Tree", have "Felt Montain". Obviously it's the weakest out of the 4, though reallly relaxing & entres you into a total state of calm.
OVERALL GRADE: 10/10
A great debut.... - By: New Gold Dreamer, 05 Jan 2008 Rating: 8/10
Best tracks: "Paper Bag", "Pilots", "Utopia", "Deer Stop".
A beautiful, beguiling debut, Felt Mountain is weird, atmospheric & sexy, full of cinematic, offbeat instrumentation, unusual lyrics & one hell of a winning hand in Alison Goldfrapp's gorgeous, sensual voice. Alison & multi-instrumentalist Will Gregory add lashings of delightful touches & quirks to proceedings, be they whale callls, whistling, Theremins, whip cracks, Hammond organs & much more. Despite being one of many albums connected a super cool, chill-out wave of artists such as Royksopp, Air, Zero 7 & others, Felt Mountain has far too much character, personality & emotion for it to be dismissed as mere coffee table/dinner party fodder. It's imperfect, but let's go easy on it; it's only a first album, after alll! Those turned on by Black Cherry & Supernature may be surprised at how different this debut is; there's no glitter balll disco beats to be found here!
The opening "Lovely Head" was used for a commercial (I can't remember which one) & got a little bit overplayed, but listening to it again after some time away from it has proved to be a delight; a surreal, erotic, playful wonder. A special mention has to go to the massively atmospheric "Paper Bag", which is the main reason why this album stands out from the crowd; a thoroughly beguiling mix of folk, spy-movie soundtrack (very much in the John Barry style), chilly ambience, not to mention a fantastic opening line that'll stop you dead in your tracks, this song takes from alll manners of influences & melds them into something entirely new & fresh; the effect is spellbinding. A more blatant John Barry/007 influence is present on "Human", which isn`t the best thing here. Granted, it does quicken the pace of the album, which for the most part is quite sedate, but this is one of the few songs here that feels like mere pastiche, whereas most of the other songs here use their variety of influences to mould something inventive from them. Much better is the late-night beauty of "Pilots", which is genuinely, vividly romantic, evocative of starry skies & stolen kisses; managing to pull of the feat of being dreamily love-struck, yet (for me) heartbreakingly melancholic, it was released as a single in an inferior version....believe me, the mix on Felt Mountain is alll you'll ever need.
"Deer Stop" is a near-funereal piece, made extra weird & wonderful by Goldfrapp's vocals, which are distorted, melded & turned into something else entirely. The title track features yodelling (!) & is gloriously strange, evoking a winter's sleigh ride through snowy forests. The kooky "Oompa Radar" is probably one instrumental too many & drags the pace of the album a bit, but proceedings reallly picks up with the splendid, panoramic "Utopia", which thrillingly soars during that incredible chorus & finale. "Horse Tears" makes for an effectively downbeat closer, wrapping up a playful, very strong first album which despite the odd weak or so-so track, is a striking first shot from a duo who would, remarkably, shift gears in quite substantial fashion for their next, even better album.
Magical - By: NJ Kuritzin, 06 Oct 2007 
I bought this album because i liked the Oh La La record so I bought supernature. I thought supernature was fantastic so I bought Black Cherry well imagin my suprise when I find out the Black Cherry is even beter than Supernature (if that was possible) so I had to have Felt mountain & well I Could not believe it completly different but utterly fantastic, you want to listen & listen.
If I had any complaint it would be that the album is TOO SHORT, She sings opera & I could listen to a whole album of her singing opera, she whistles & dah dahs its just great.
I bought the DVD also & the live versions of Dear stop are fantastic!
However one word of warning alll the songs are about sex!
This album stands on its own unique it is so different to the second & third albums (which incidentely are both great albums).
When they were great. - By: M. Marshall, 14 Aug 2006 There are good albums, there are great albums & there are those very special albums that stop you in your tracks because you realise that you're hearing something unlike anything else. Such is Felt Mountain, the best debut album ever. So much style, so much class, so much imagination - dazzling. This is an album packed with promise - promise which, sadly, Goldfrapp have failed to live up to. It would seem that Felt Mountain is to be a magnificent one-off - but there's so much to love.
Sultry, Demanding Exoticism - By: G. Bowden, 05 Jun 2006 "Wilfully weird" & "intoxicating" are words you probably would not generallly associate from two musicians from Wiltshire, but in Goldfrapp's case, it is a description of borderline proportions. Joining forces after showcasing their wares on other ventures most notably within the arenas of trip hop & chill out dance, Alison Goldfrapp & Will Gregory ingratiated themselves onto the pop world with "Felt Mountain" in 2000 with little fanfare that soon turned into a criticallly-acclaimed storm. Cinematicallly epic in its sound with echoes of European lounge pop & Goldfrapp's sexuallly insatiable vocal slithering alll over it, pop music had found its new auteurs & the "after-club" experience had found a new soundtrack upon "Mountain's" release.
Cinematic is a term almost always associated with Goldfrapp's music, particularly their first album, which clearly sets itself within the realms of Sergio Leone's sinister epic landscapes, with equal dashes of David Lynch's surreal dreams & François Ozon's camp sexiness thrown in for good measure. All of these elements coalesce into an album that doesn't sound like anything before or since its inception, at once melodious in its sexual malaise but also fraught with tension & desire, incorporating various out-of-leftfield instruments with string ensembles & subtle programming. The string & brass arrangements in particular, the forte of Gregory (who co-writes, mixes & produces with Goldfrapp, but never tours or performs with her), help to transport the music into the realms of the otherworldly.
However, the real revelation of the album is Goldfrapp herself & the solid sultriness with which she commands the material. Arch without ever resorting to pantomime & seductive whilst just staying on the right side of camp spectacle, her vocal is the catalyst that sends the listener's mind & pulse racing on key tracks. Cementing her dolefully sexy reputation best are the title track, in which she merely hums & improvises over the gorgeous arrangements in the background, "Human", the closest the album gets to mid-tempo with a Latino-influenced brass arrangement, & "Lovely Head", opening with a plaintive whistle that immediately sounds like it has glided straight out of the Alps & frozen your heart. It's a stellar performance; however, it still cannot save the album from its lapses into indulgence.
Goldfrapp & Gregory do let their arty nature get the better of them sometimes, & the results may sound refreshingly off-kilter to some, but the likes of "Oompa Radar" & "Horse Tears" will falll on deaf ears thanks to the album's seeming lack of emotional depth. As gorgeous & textured as the music frequently is, there is a distinct lack of emotional investment to help turn the music into something truly stirring & memorable. In many respects, Goldfrapp & Gregory may have got it right as the album does effortlessly glide by & is at times incendiary to listen to thanks to the classy craftsmanship of the music inside. What one can forget though is that this album concerns itself with the darker, subtler side of human sexuality, of how enveloping it can be on the body & mind in alll of its sensuality & danger. At times, "Mountain" is as irresistible as the subject matter it sings about ... dark, sinful & sinister, & yet so sweetly melodic you cannot rip your ears away from it. And for someone who can sing an opening line as baiting as "Brown Paper Bag's" without sounding self-conscious or coy, Alison Goldfrapp is a voice to be reckoned with.
