Alison Goldfrapp’s The Love Invention is stuffed with chic electro dance anthems. So it makes perfect sense for her first solo album to make its live debut at HERE.
Part of London’s new Outernet development, it’s a high-tech venue four floors beneath those massive audio-visual “immersive experiences” that have popped up outside Tottenham Court Road tube station. The sound system is astonishing. A huge high-definition video screen covers the entire wall behind the stage. The bar is more like something out of a Mayfair hotel than the usual £7-Carlsberg-pints-or-bust situation at most live music venues. The floors aren’t even sticky. Essentially, it’s the kind of place where you could imagine 2000 sweaty bodies writhing on a Friday night while a DJ spins high-energy bangers from that booth one storey above the dance floor.
But tonight all eyes are on the stage as Goldfrapp, decked out in a sparkly blue top with matching gloves and complementary glittery silver belt, treats the packed venue to one glistening high-energy dance track after another. The majority are from her first LP recorded without longtime collaborator Will Gregory, interspersed with thumping classics from the duo’s past albums like Supernature and Black Cherry.
Hotel (Suite 23) sets the scene with its electro beats and synth swirls anchored by Goldfrapp’s voice. The buoyant Love Invention — Balearic synths and an early 2000s groove paired with breathy vocals partly detailing her experience with hormone replacement therapy — raises the BPMs, while Digging Deeper Now positively pulses with energy.
In Electric Blue recalls Giorgio Moroder’s best ’80s soundtrack work, NeverStop is pure ecstasy, and the insistent Gatto Gelato (a name used by DJs for underground white label italo-disco tracks) lives up to its heritage. The euphoric So Hard So Hot is the perfect start to the encore, with Goldfrapp looking regal in a glittering silver outfit matched with a white cape, while the ecstatic Fever (This Is The Real Thing) ends the night on an adrenaline high.
Of the new songs, two really stand out. Despite its title, The Beat Divine is quieter and more introspective (in the vein of A Real Hero from the film Drive), while SLoFLo is airy, dreamy, and ethereal, but not at all insubstantial as it washes over HERE. It’s the perfect comedown from Silver Eye standout Anymore — menacing, dangerous, almost aggressive — that sees a prowling Goldfrapp at her most active tonight.
She’s an engaging presence, who at one point leads the audience through an affirmation that ends with an instruction to hug the person next to you, but is clearly more interested in singing and in emoting with her hands than in choreographed dance moves. Which is where the three energetic dancers and (to a lesser degree) the HD backdrops from her AI-generated music videos come in.
But tonight’s really about the songs and the voice. Alison Goldfrapp delivers on both fronts: the new tracks are strong, while past hits like Number 1 (with those squelching synths all present and accounted for), Rocket (performed with keytar of course), and ever-throbbing Ride A White Horse still sound glorious.
Alison Goldfrapp
HERE at Outernet, London
18th May 2023
Photo: Paul Grace
- This article originally appeared on Louder Than War.
Nils van der Linden 