This album came out two decades ago. Here’s what I had to say about it back then (with some minor editing):
Poor Alison Goldfrapp might want to consider changing her name — if only to avoid all the Goldfinger puns likely to come her way once more people tune into the singer’s stellar debut album Felt Mountain.
Goldfrapp, you see, has a set of smoky, sultry, noir-torch pipes pitched halfway between Shirley Bassey and Beth Gibbons from Portishead. And this, coupled with the fact that her musical partner Will Gregory is a composer who appears to have a thing for twangy trip-hop soundscapes that suggest a post-millennial John Barry, means that the dramatic and dreamy Felt Mountain is practically a ready-made soundtrack for the next 007 spy-fest. Not to mention one of the most transcendent and mesmerizing electronica albums of late, riddled with brooding Germanic decadence, dripping with slowly flowing waves of subaquatic synthesizers and bristling with scratchy, edgy samples. How brilliant is Felt Mountain? Put it this way — one of the blokes in Radiohead called it one of the best albums he heard last year, and you already know what he’s been listening to.
