Alison Goldfrapp On Going Solo For ‘The Love Invention’ and Collaborating With Röyksopp

If there is a word that perfectly sums up The Love Invention, Alison Goldfrapp’s new record, it’s ‘euphoria.’ That feeling conveyed in both the music and lyrics runs throughout the British singer’s most recent album—which is notable since The Love Invention marks her first solo release after 20 years of recording and touring with musician Will Gregory under the Goldfrapp group moniker. With the popular electronic music duo’s long history of sustained success—a career that has included hit albums and singles and awards—it begs the obvious question: What made this the appropriate moment for Goldfrapp to go venture out on her own?

“I don’t know if it was really to do with it being the right time,” she says during a video chat. “It was more ‘I better get on and do this or I’m going to be out of time,’ being the age that I am. It’s something that I wanted to make for a really long time if I’m honest. And so it was like, ‘I better bloody get on and do it.’

With a discography consisting of seven studio albums, Goldfrapp the duo has crafted a body of work built on the foundation of electronic music while incorporating other genres like ambient, folktronica, synthpop, trip-hop, and glam pop. For The Love Invention, the singer employed a more modern danceable and widescreen sound suited for the clubs, somewhere between EDM and Italo disco—with the one constant being her sultry singing and dreamy lyrics. And similarly like her namesake group, Goldfrapp the solo artist has also made visuals part of the musical identity as indicated by the eye-catching video vignettes directed by Mat Maitland for the album’s singles.

“When you’re in a duo with someone, there are things you want to do that the other person doesn’t want to. So it’s just a combination of lots of things. I mean, Will and I’ve done [dance pop] covers—we’ve done a cover of “Physical” [by Olivia Newton-John] and “Yes, Sir, I Can Boogie” [by Baccara]. For me, I’ve always had a love of that kind of thing. So I suppose this is me just taking that and going with it a lot further and maybe to places that I didn’t feel so appropriate with doing it with Will. It’s lots of different things. There’s no one answer.”

That desire to make her own record saw Goldfrapp collaborate with producers Richard X, James Greenwood and Toby Scott (Goldfrapp the group has not broken up). “I really enjoy working with other people,” she says, “and I really enjoy bringing other people into a writing situation, and I’ve always implemented that. I’ve always chosen to bring in the drum programmer in and another producer in. Because for me, that is important to develop what you’re doing. I think it’s exciting. It’s inspiring to have that other energy in the room.”

Goldfrapp also says: “I think my taste is so wide and so varied. And so for me, I kind of draw inspiration from all sorts of things, not just music, but also visual things. One of my references for “So Hard So Hot”— I’m really into old school Brazilian music, and the harmony on that tune very much came from old Brazilian music that I’m listening to vocally. So very subtle things can sort of get in there. I loved Will Powers’ [Dancing for Mental Health], the post-punk New York album [from 1983]. I’m also into very contemporary production. For me, this album I wanted it to sound really contemporary.”

Nearly every song on The Love Invention dazzles with energy and cinematic-like grandeur, as in the case of the aforementioned “So Hard So Hot,” which seemingly hints at a utopian scenario in the lyrics. “And dystopian as well,” Goldfrapp adds. “I think it’s a combination of the two. What inspired that? Well, the hot weather, climate change. And then the chorus is like a kind of release, and it’s sort of the idea of coming out of the darkness into the light and celebration, as are a lot of the songs on the album. So it’s a kind of a dystopian and utopian landscape.”

Another of the album’s singles is “Love Invention,” which appears to be describing an adrenaline rush related to romance. But there is an underlying commentary, according to Goldfrapp, about the wonder drugs on the market that promises to enhance people’s everyday lives. On her Instagram, “I’m being constantly bombarded with doctors and people claiming to discover some wonder pill, and that I should definitely sign up now take whatever drug they think is going to make me have youth and power. I was talking about that as much as anything. It’s kind of a humorous look at that idea. I suppose it’s the similar idea to “Strict Machine” [from the 2003 Goldfrapp album Black Cherry]—that you can plug yourself into this thing that will give you the ultimate love experience.”

Amid the highly charged dance numbers, The Love Invention has its reflective and sublime moments, such as the album’s closing song “SloFlo” and the romantic “In Electric Blue.” “I was thinking about a sort of teenage love, first love, and that kind of feeling that you have,” Goldfrapp says of the latter song, “sort of very romantic, very free. I was also thinking about teen sci-fi/road movies, that slightly ‘80s feeling to it. Those kind of arpeggiated synths are very much a staple feature of ‘80s synthpop. So that’s where that comes from. It’s a kind of romantic ghost story in a way.”

Then there’s “Hotel (Suite 23),” a sly and sexy track that evokes a romantic rendezvous in that specific setting. “I love going to hotels,” she says. “I love kind of the transient-ness of them, and it was also looking at the hotel being the lover itself. So it’s the idea of you’re actually having this relationship with the room and the mini-bar and spending a night in a hotel by yourself.”

Prior to the release of The Love Invention, Goldfrapp collaborated with the Norwegian electronic music duo Röyksopp on the songs “Impossible” and “The Night” for their Profound Mysteries album series. “I thought it’d be just fun to work with an artist and not create everything myself,” she explains, “which is what I’ve always done with Will. And somehow I thought it’ll be just really fun to do something with someone where I don’t do everything and just thought that would be more fun, less pressure in a way, and also trying out something completely different.

“I thought, ‘Oh, I really like Röyksopp. Why don’t I just write them an email?’ I reached out to them. I’ve reached out to a few people actually, but quite a few of them didn’t even bother writing back to me. But they [ did. Lovely, lovely guys they are too. So we collaborated and it was a really nice thing to do.”

Goldfrapp initially considered visiting Norway to hang out with the members of Röyksopp in the recording studio, but that didn’t happen due to lockdown at the time. “They were like, ‘No, sorry. We can’t have anybody over.’ And I was like, ‘Oh, okay.’ But that was quite interesting because it meant that I had to make a [recording] setup here at home. It was hugely beneficial for me in many ways because it gave me a chance to kind of experiment and do things at home on my own.”

With a reputation of being a chameleonic artist both musically and visually through her eponymously named group, does Goldfrapp already have ideas of what her next musical direction will be? “No, I think I definitely wanted to explore this atmosphere, this vibe, this tempo [from The Love Invention] down.”

Currently, Goldfrapp has lined up solo performances in the U.K. through next year to promote the record; she performed at the Glastonbury Festival last month. The singer is hoping to do shows in the States at some point. “I absolutely love playing there. I’ve got really great memories of playing in New York. I mean, I love playing live… It’s sort of like you’re breathing another life into the songs. When you play them live, they kind of very much exist as one thing—and then you play them live and then they start to grow in my mind in another way. And it’s interesting how people’s reactions to songs when they’re live as well. So it’s all a process. I hope I’m going to start writing again soon as I can actually. I’m really up for it, just keep going.”