Goldfrapp – review

Some artists treat shows in churches as normal gigs, others discover previously unsuspected reservoirs of propriety and decorum. For this Mencap-sponsored gig in the Little Noise Sessions , which have transferred from Islington's Union Chapel to this Hackney church, Goldfrapp have forsaken their usual sexed-up electro-pop for a positively chilled-out serenity. Eschewing her trademark dominatrix gear and peacock tails, kohl-eyed singer Alison Goldfrapp is understated and demure in a floor-length plain black dress and Heidi plaits. The occasion has even prompted a rare on-stage appearance from the other half of the duo, reclusive studio alchemist Will Gregory, who sits at a keyboard flanked by backing singers and a string section. The evening's semi-acoustic format leaves no place for most of the band's electro-stomp singles, and they play nothing at all from their last album, 2010's Head First . Instead, they major on material from 2008's Seventh Tree , playing all but one track from an album that found them channelling a bucolic, luxuriant strain of folk. It's hardly Goldfrapp Unplugged – Gregory's thrumming synth pulse still runs through everything – but it is quietly lovely. The ambient dream-pop of A&E and Clowns is ethereal and unsettling. Goldfrapp is in fine voice, veering from a sultry murmur on the trip-hop-inclined Cologne Cerrone Houdini to a startling soprano on old song Utopia . The sole new track, Melancholy Sky , is a skeletal and pensive John Barry-like reverie that implies their forthcoming album may tend towards the elegantly introspective. It is a tantalising prospect: maybe Goldfrapp should go to church more often.