Goldfrapp

Goldfrapp are a musical duo from London, England, consisting of the musicians Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory.

The duo was formed in 1999, when after being introduced to Alison Goldfrapp, Will Gregory heard a composition from her (an early version of the song "Human"). The members felt a mutual connection and then they wrote their first song, "Lovely Head". The decision to form a musical band was taken after months of phone calls between the two of them, and they decided to call it like Alison's last name. In August, the newly formed duo signed a recording contract with record label Mute Records.

Formation

 * "We both had been in music doing various things, as you do trying to earn your living as a musician. It seems like you have to be flexible, to say, at the very least. Looking back on it, I guess you could say that we'd come to a point in our lives, respectively, where we felt we needed to just stop doing all those little things that feel like a compromise, and try and do something that feels like it's really what you want to do. But at the time, I think it was just that I heard her voice. I heard her singing on a very early version of a song that later became [the Goldfrapp track] "Human," and it sounded great. I just thought, "This is someone I'd really like to meet. Wherever she is, I want to be there too - because I feel like I already am." I just felt that there was a connection there."
 * – Will Gregory

A time when Alison Goldfrapp was trying to find her own sound, after working as a guest performer with musical acts Orbital and Dreadzone, Will Gregory on the other side, had done writing for films and TV and was still working on that, thinking of the idea of being a chameleon –fitting the voice of one to whatever style–, but also more interested of the idea of finding an own voice and style, which he thought he had found, but could not do it because it was not appropiate for the projects. This was the time when a mutual friend gave Will a tape of Alison singing one of her unfinished songs (which would later become "Human"), and Gregory thought about her voice being really appropiate for a project of a song for a film he was making. He phoned Alison with the pretext of doing a demo for this film song, but also with the intention of trying other things to see what can happen. After doing the named demo, which Will describes as "dreadful", they quickly lost interest on it and started doing their own musical works.

With both of them being located on different places (Will lived in Bath while Alison lived in London), they passed the time talking through phone calls and compilation cassettes of their favourite tracks, "just to see where their heads were."