Felt Mountain

Goldfrapp and Gregory recorded the album over six months from September 1999 in a rented bungalow in the Wiltshire countryside. Alison wrote the lyrics, abstract tales inspired by science fiction, films, her childhood and the loneliness she felt while making the record, and the two wrote the music together. Gregory arranged the strings and brass.

Opening track Lovely Head is built on whistling and heavily processed vocals. Paper Bag is about being obsessed with someone and unable to have them, and its opening line uses profanity. Pilots describes travelers floating above the earth and was inspired by John Barry's James Bond themes. Oompa Radar draws on Roman Polanski's 1966 film Cul-de-Sac and uses a flugelhorn and a cuckoo clock to change tempo. The album closes with Horse Tears, a minimal piano ballad with filtered vocals. Utopia was the second single.

Reception

The album debuted at number 144 on the UK chart with 914 copies sold, and peaked at 57 in September 2001. It was certified gold on 12 October 2001 and had sold 177,096 copies in Britain by August 2005. In France it reached number 48. It was shortlisted for the 2001 Mercury Prize, and Q placed it on its list of the top 50 albums of 2000.

Pitchfork's review said it was simultaneously smarmy and seductive, yet elegant and graceful, and that it never has a truly weak moment. NME found it cold, desolate and old-fashioned. It is one of the albums in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.