To some of you, Charlotte Gainsbourg is best known as the genital mutilating she-devil in Lars Von Trier’s deeply disturbing Antichrist. To others, she is the daughter of louche-lothario/alcoholic mess (delete as appropriate) Serge Gainsbourg and his muse, Jane Birkin.
IRM (the French acronym for an MRI scanner) is Gainsbourg’s third album. But this is where we run into some semantic difficulty. Her first release, 1986’s Charlotte for Ever was written by her father, Serge, who it seems was trying to outdo Malcolm McLaren’s attempts at using paedophilia and incest as shock tactics du jour.
Fast forward 20 years, and the now award winning actress hooks up with French elevator music specialists Air, Jarvis Cocker and Neil Hannon (better known as the Divine Comedy) to create 5.55, which goes platinum in France, making her a star.
And now we have an album, in which all writing credits go to Beck. Yes, her voice is gorgeous, and it really works with the production, but is any of this really hers? I can’t decide myself, you will have to make your own minds up, which should be easy, because…
…IRM is a stunning album. It’s clear that Beck learned more than a few tricks from long-time Radiohead collaborator Nigel Godrich, and Charlotte’s untrained chanteuse style glides over songs that flit between stringed ballads and the stomping folk that made Beck’s Modern Guilt so great.
Opener Master’s Hands incorporates all 14 tracks into one. The clanking percussion and staccato acoustics are soothed by Gainsbourg’s feather-light delivery. Title track IRM is a brooding sound collage of medical equipment, doorbells, and Faust’s motorik propulsion.
Lead Single Heaven Can Wait is essentially a Beck song, his voice overpowers Charlotte’s so much that it’s only really recognisable that she’s on the track once she has three or four lines to herself. Me and Jane Doe is how Laura Marling would sound if she lived up to any of her hype; it skips around your head with impish naivety. In contrast, Vanities cascades with brooding strings and crashing percussion to create spectral Spector-esque walls of beauty.
Le Chat Du Cafe Des Artistes and Voyage are the only two reminders that most of this album is in Charlotte’s second language. Whether it’s to distance herself from her father’s work, or to show disdain for the French rule that 40% of songs on the radio must be en francais, I don’t know. Unfortunately, the two tracks are the proverbial foreign exchange student, having serious trouble fitting in with the flow of the album.
Trick Pony swaggers like you owe it something. Dirty and stuttering, it sits like a punk girl at a bar you don’t know whether to bathe or screw.
IRM is essentially a Beck album; it has his smell all over it. But it’s Chartlotte’s too, because her voice ties up loose ends that would only have frayed with anyone else.
WHAT TO DO NOW?