The album received critical acclaim. AllMusic reviewer Heather Phares referred to the album as a "strange and beautiful mix of the romantic, eerie, and world-weary" and named it "one of 2000's most impressive debuts". Eric Wittmershaus of Flak Magazine called Felt Mountain "an enchanting, accessible debut", citing "Human" and "Deer Stop" as its best songs. In a review for Pitchfork, Matt LeMay described the album as "elegant and graceful", but felt that the "songs aren't all that different from one another." Sacha Esterson of musicOMH compared Felt Mountain to Portishead and wrote that it could be a "contender for the year's best album". Yahoo! Music's Ken Micallef commented that the duo "make elegiac music as elegant as 'Diamonds Are Forever' and as haunting as Bobbie Gentry's 'Ode to Billie Joe'", concluding that the album's "dark night of the soul is mostly bleak, beautiful, and deliciously bizarre." Andrew Lynch of entertainment.ie noted that "[a]lthough at times it a little contrived, for the most part this is stylishly decadent music that should appeal to all fans of film noir." NME viewed the album as "cold, desolate and old-fashioned" and argued that Felt Mountain was not a "bad concept" except that "Portishead got there first, and managed to update the spy-film vibe with a hefty dose of break-driven twilight melancholia."
Q included the album on its list of the top 50 albums of 2000. The following year, Felt Mountain was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize, an annual music prize awarded for the best British or Irish album from the previous year. In 2006, the album was included in Robert Dimery's book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. In November 2009, The Times ranked Felt Mountain at number 16 on its list of the 100 best pop albums of the 2000s. The album was placed at number 94 on Slant Magazines list of the best albums of the 2000s.
Commercial performance
Felt Mountain debuted at number 144 on the UK Albums Chart, selling 914 copies in its first week. In September 2001, the album peaked at number 57, and had sold 177,096 copies by August 2005. As of April 2003, the album had sold 500,000 copies worldwide.
Track listing
On online streaming services, "Oompa Radar" is written as "Oompah Radar".
Personnel
Credits adapted from the liner notes of Felt Mountain.
Goldfrapp
- Alison Goldfrapp – vocals, whistling, keyboards
- Will Gregory – keyboards, string arrangements, brass arrangements
Additional musicians
- Stuart Gordon – violin, viola ; tremolo violins ; violin solo
- Adrian Utley – bass guitar ; synth, tremolo bass guitar
- Nick Batt – bass synth ; metal percussion ; additional programming
- John Parish – drums ; bass guitar, tremolo guitar
- Alexander Bălănescu – violin
- Sonia Slany – violin
- Nick Barr – viola
- Nick Cooper – cello
- Mary Scully – double bass
- Andy Davis – baritone ukulele, melodica, koto
- Mute Male Voices – humming
- Jacqueline Norrie – violin
- Bill Hawkes – viola
- Rowan Oliver – percussion
- Andy Bush – trumpet ; flugelhorn solo
- Ben Waghorn – tenor saxophone
- John Cornick – trombone
- Clive Deamer – brushes
- Steve MacAllister – French horn
- Steven Claydon – synth
- Flowers Band – brass band
- Tony Orrell – drums
- Luke Gordon – additional programming
- Chris Weston – additional programming
Technical
- Will Gregory – production
- Alison Goldfrapp – production
- Dave Bascombe – additional mixing
- Nick Batt – additional mixing ; additional engineering
- Kevin Paul – additional mixing ; additional engineering
- Luke Gordon – additional engineering
- David Lord – additional engineering
- John Dent – mastering
Artwork
- Alison Goldfrapp – sleeve design
- Joe Dilworth – inside photo of Will Gregory, cover photo
- Anna Fox – inside photo of Alison Goldfrapp
- C. L. Schmidt – landscape photography
- Günter Gräfenhain – landscape photography
Charts
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! scope="col"| Peak<br/>position
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