Floaty…
[Video][Website]
[5.86]
Katherine St Asaph: An anthem from a loftier, less substantial land, where voices melt like lemon drops and any corporeal phrase or bulky sound would rip through the atmosphere and plummet away, gauze reforming over the gap within seconds. Sometimes that place sounds nicer than ours.
[7]
Anthony Easton: I have always liked Goldfrapp’s voice, but always disliked the musical choices she has made; I think it is mostly that it isn’t quite stripped down acoustic pretty-for-pretty’s-sake, and it isn’t the gold ribbon through noisy electronic forest. It might also be the unicorn-riding vibe of performative girlish femininity, and i can only handle that in either pop or heavy irony, and this has neither. The same problem that Miranda July has, actually.
[6]
Jonathan Bogart: I pretty much always like Goldfrapp no matter what they’re doing, but this very much has the sketchy, incomplete feel of a bonus track to the Greatest Hits. Which is what it is. So all’s right with the world.
[7]
Iain Mew: I thought this was too insubstantial at first but that might actually be its biggest strength. “One day you said you wanted to fly… to the moon”. They don’t quite get there, but close. “Dawn breaks endlessly” and then it does, in bright colours and a soft warm drift, across the rest of the song. And maybe it’s breaking endlessly because we’re in flight to keep around the world along with it. There’s never a noticeable take off but it eventually becomes clear that we’re somehow drifting miles off the ground among the clouds. It’s very pretty up there.
[7]
Jonathan Bradley: Goes down easy like “A&E,” but without the poison that froze your veins after it had finished.
[5]
Brad Shoup: Has the same vocal caesuras and understated percussive approach as the deathless “I Love You Always Forever.” Sadly, Goldfrapp introduce a new variable to the formula: hamfisted phasing that nearly sends the spirit-moving-over-the-waters vibe crashing into the shallows. The crowd-noise insert is the loveliest touch, but is it a valedictory?
[6]
Alfred Soto: Breathy twaddle over an arrangement American Airlines wouldn’t use in a commercial. I don’t understand these people.
[3]