Seventh Tree

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Seventh Tree
Goldfrapp's studio album

Publication
(s)

February 22, 2008 (Germany)
February 25, 2008 (UK)
February 26, 2008 (USA)

admission

October 2006 - October 2007

Label (s) Mute

Format (s)

CD, CD + DVD, download, vinyl

Genre (s)

Folktronica , Ambient , Dream Pop

Title (number)

10

running time

41:32

occupation See below

production

chronology
Supernature
(2005) 		Seventh Tree Head First
(2010)

Seventh Tree (German: "Seventh Tree" ) is the fourth studio album by the British duo Goldfrapp .

In contrast to the two previous albums Supernature and Black Cherry , which mainly contained danceable disco music, Goldfrapp are dedicating themselves to quieter sounds with their fourth albums. Seventh Tree was a commercial success for the duo. The album reached number 2 on the album charts in Great Britain and number 21 in the German album charts, the top position of all albums by artists in Germany to date.

Background information

With their fourth studio album, Goldfrapp turned away from the musical style of their two previous albums, Supernature and Black Cherry . Instead of catchy and danceable disco songs, calm, atmospheric sounds dominate, which are close to nature and resemble the sound of the debut album Felt Mountain . Alison Goldfrapp justified this change in style with the intention of creating something “more intimate” and “calmer” after the Supernature tour promotion. When asked how her record label reacted to the change in genre, musician and producer Will Gregory replied:

Alison Goldfrapp sings songs from the album Seventh Tree at the Royal Festival Hall in London.

“We are very lucky to have a record company that likes to experiment and try new things. I think in some ways we were more scared of it than they were. We thought: 'What are we doing here?' And we played them some songs, early demos, and they loved them. That was great."

- Will Gregory

Alison Goldfrapp said in an interview that she got her inspiration from the surreal themes of children's books and paganism . As with the previous albums, Seventh Tree was recorded in a rented house in Bath, Somerset, England, instead of - as usual - in a professional recording studio. In the run-up to work on their new album, the two musicians discussed the use of various new instruments, including the harp.

Songs

The opening song of the album Clowns is an acoustic pop song in which Alison Goldfrapp sings in a very high voice about the prevailing beauty and youth craze. The follow-up play Little Bird (German: "Kleiner Vogel" ) is about a crow that has two mouths instead of eyes. According to Will Gregory, Happiness has a dark, melancholy undertone, despite the happy sound, which is about the question of how to become happy and how hard and rocky the road to get there is. A&E (long form: "Accident & Emergency" ), the English term for a hospital emergency room, revolves around a woman who indulges in her daydreams in the hospital. Alison Goldfrapp explained the idea behind A&E : “ I got the inspiration for A&E on a Saturday afternoon while I was spending a few hours in the emergency room. It wasn't serious, but I was still pumped full of pain medication. And I saw some rugby players being brought in on stretchers. She all had broken noses or arms. And I suppose A&E stands as a kind of metaphor for a broken relationship. ”When asked if the guitars had to be played on the song, Will Gregory replied that the chords were simulated on the keyboard first. When they asked friends to play them on the real guitar, they proved too complicated so the keyboard samples had to be used.

illustration

The cover of Seventh Tree shows Alison Goldfrapp with her back to the viewer and looking over her left shoulder. She has blond curly hair and wears a black hat and a white ruffled shirt. The blurred outlines of a forest can be seen in the background; Goldfrapp is illuminated by light from the left. The booklet is a folding poster on one side of which there is a picture of Gregory and Goldfrapp, on which Gregory is disguised as an owl in a feathered costume, Goldfrapp, disguised as a clown, hugs from behind. The other side of the sheet is used to list the lyrics and contributors of the album.

reception

source rating
Allmusic
NME
According to
CDStarts
The mirror Star empty.svg
Disk tests
The Guardian
Metascore 78%

Critics were enthusiastic about Goldfrapp's return to the musical style of her debut album. “After two completely different albums with a move towards sounds that are compatible with the dance floor, Gregory and Goldfrapp are again turning around and dedicating themselves to quieter sounds. The duo declares the relaxed moment to be the leitmotif of the album, because the compelling beat escapades and the electronic kinkiness that characterized Black Cherry and sometimes Supernature , take a back seat in favor of organic elements. The electroid coolness that dominated the two previous releases remains almost hidden in the props cabinet and only comes into play in two songs in more homeopathic doses [...] The new facet of the British is already revealed with the first sounds of the opener Clown . An unmistakable Alison puts her elf-like vocals over acoustic guitar plucks. Soft strings underline the otherwise very reduced sounding opening piece. The basic mood of the song, however, has nothing clownish about it, but swims along on a wave of tragedy [...] Sadly beautiful in this sense, Goldfrapp wallow in the emotional penumbra between light at the end of the tunnel and depressive hopelessness. Once again Gregory and Goldfrapp prove that they shake first-class song material off their sleeves with an apparent nonchalance, but this time it sounds more fragile than anything recorded so far ”, says Alexander Cordas, editor at Laut .

Track list

# title Duration
1. "Clowns" 4:08
2. "Little Bird" 4:25
3. "Happiness" 4:17
4th "Road To Somewhere" 3:52
5. "Eat Yourself" 4:06
6th "Some People" 4:40
7th "A&E" 3:18
8th. "Cologne Cerrone Houdini" 4:26
9. "Caravan Girl" 4:05
10. "Monster Love" 4:23

Bonus material

# title Duration
11. "You Never Know" (Live In London) 3:28
12. "Clowns" (instrumental version) 4:12

DVD

  • Goldfrapp documentation
  • A&E (music video)

Singles

year title Chart placements
DE AT CH UK US
2008 A&E
Seventh Tree 		98 - - 10 -
Happiness
Seventh Tree 		- - - 25th -
Caravan Girl
Seventh Tree 		- - - 54 -
Clowns
Seventh Tree 		- - - - -

Chart successes

Placements

Charts position
Australia 14th
Belgium 10
Germany 21st
France 37
Ireland 9
New Zealand 39
Netherlands 24
Norway 18th
Austria 37
Switzerland 11
Spain 72
United States 48
United Kingdom 2

Contributors

The following people contributed to the creation of Seventh Tree .

music

  • Singing: Alison Goldfrapp
  • Background vocals: Alison Goldfrapp
  • Guitar: Richard Evans, Steve Evans, Flood, Chris Goulstone, Alex Lee, Kit Morgan, Andrew Murphy, Simon Rogers
  • Keys: Flood, Aidan Love
  • Drums: Chris Goulstone, Damon Reece, Denny Westen Jr.
  • Bass: Tony Hoffer, Charlie Jones, Alex Lee, Justin Meldal-Johnsen
  • Harp: Ruth Wall
  • Fuzz guitar: Adrian Utley
  • Fuzzbass: Adrian Utley
  • Violin:
  • Cello: Cathy Giles, Chris Worsey, David Daniels, Melissa Phelps, Paul Kegg, Robin Firman
  • Viola: Andy Parker, Chris Pitsilides, Katie Wilkinson, Peter Lale
  • Double bass: Mary Scully, Paddy Lannigan
  • Choir: The Metro Voices
  • Choir director: Jenny O'Grady

production

  • Production: Alison Goldfrapp, Will Gregory, Floods
  • Mixing: Tony Hoffer, Bill Mims, Flood, Goldfrapp
  • Engineering: Tony Hoffer, Bill Mims, Tim Oliver
  • Mastering: Stephen Marcussen

Visual

  • Art Direction: Alison Goldfrapp, Mat Maitland
  • Photographs: Serge Leblon
  • Design: Mat Maitland
  • Owl drawing: Alison Goldfrapp

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Pitchfork interview
  2. ↑ NME interview
  3. ↑ Happiness at Songfacts.com (English), accessed August 25, 2019.
  4. ↑ a b A&E at Songfacts.com (English), accessed on August 25, 2019.
  5. ↑ Seventh Tree Rating: Allmusic
  6. ↑ Rating: NME
  7. ↑ Loud scoring
  8. ↑ Criticism CDStarts
  9. ↑ Critique of Spiegel
  10. ↑ Rating: disk tests
  11. ↑ Review: The Guardian
  12. ^ Metascore
  13. ↑ Chart sources: UK DE ( Memento of the original dated November 2, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. AT CH @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.musicline.de
  14. ↑ Chart positions: Seventh Tree
  15. ↑ Seventh Tree -Booklet