Charlotte Gainsbourg

Because

By Alex Wisgard

When last we saw la belle Gainsbourg, she was mutilating herself in a most private place at the behest of malevolent directing genius Lars von Trier in last year’s harrowing Antichrist. This, hot on the heels of a near-fatal brain haemorrhage, has hardly left her in the best mindset to record the follow-up to 2006’s critically acclaimed 5:55.

Fortunately, instead of working with songwriters (Air, Neil ‘Divine Comedy’ Hannon) who are almost as in thrall to her legendary father as Charlotte herself, IRM (that’s French for MRI) is a collaboration with the king of PoMo pop himself, Beck.

Unlike its predecessor, the album is very much the sound of an artist starting to find herself. Gainsbourg’s vocals have always been seductive - a lush whisper which oozes Gallic cool while exuding a quaintly English restraint; on IRM, they truly shine. Hushed ballads like ‘In the End’ betray a spectrally alluring folk sound, showcasing the subtleties of Gainsbourg’s voice, while the pitch black sultriness of ‘Greenwich Mean Time’ sounds like a missing track from PJ Harvey’s classic To Bring You My Love. Meanwhile, a cover of Jean-Pierre Ferland’s ‘Le Chat du Café des Artistes’ trades the original’s Scott Walker-esque emotion for a more laconic tone, as if Gainsbourg is nervously taking notes on bohemian conversations, rather than instigating them herself.

Beck’s grubby paws are all over some of the more esoteric numbers here, especially its arresting opener; ‘Master’s Hands’ sounds like the claustrophobic cousin of Björk’s ‘Venus as a Boy’. As wonderful as it is, however, the darkly jaunty single ‘Heaven Can Wait’ sounds disappointingly like La Charlotte just dropped by to contribute backing vocals on someone else’s song. Not cool, Beck. Not cool.

Sure, some tracks float by in the kind of monochrome fug of the artwork, but IRM remains a more consistent and enticing prospect than the self-consciously mysterious 5:55. Sadly, having come out everywhere else at the tail end of 2009, it isn’t quite the first great album of the decade, so it’ll just have to content itself with being the noughties’ last great LP instead. Regardless of who she works with next, it’s refreshing to hear Charlotte Gainsbourg finally establishing herself in her own right. - (8)