(2009)
I was initially a bit hesitant to approach this album due to being disappointed with the previous album, 5:55 (2006). However, from the first opening chords of the premier track Master’s Hands, I was immediately drawn in. Unexpected lyrics and unconventional hints of primitive Americana combined with a slight hint of psychedelic pop create a unique, intriguing, and compulsively listenable hybrid of sound on Charlotte Gainsbourg’s latest album IRM. The sinister lyrics from the opening track reveal a strange and astounding telepathic connection Charlotte and Beck shared in the production of the album. Penning, “Take my eyes and paint my bones / Drill my brain all full of holes / And patch it up before it leaks / These memories come two by three”, Beck was not aware at the time that a year earlier Charlotte had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage so severe that she literally experienced the exact ordeal described in these lyrics.
Gainsbourg initially approaches the compositional process as a sort of conduit, in the same vein as Marianne Faithfull or her mother Jane Birkin. She serves as a sort of intermediary between the composer and the song itself, usually co-penning a song and its arrangements, stepping aside for a specific artist to present a song meant to be sung for her. However, for this album the creative process with Beck was incredibly collaborative and hands-on. The sessions could be described as having a "workshop" sensibility where through a dialogue ; they would form the lyrics and the arrangements.
Musically, so much of Charlotte Gainsbourg up until this point has seemed to exist behind a veil of extreme shyness and uncertainty, however, with IRM this veil seems to have been lifted ; the layers made more opaque. Here we see a more assertive, more self-assured Charlotte than has ever been seen before. With such iconic parents who cast such prolific shadows, not to mention a childhood lived under a microscope, it comes as no surprise that a sensitive, thoughtful soul would have come to embrace certain types of uncertainty towards discovering their own unique voice. Here, that voice seems to have finally broken loose. The confidence is there and the versatility is finally coming out. This is a masterful record by a prolific late-bloomer.
Each song exists in its own specific universe. A surprise lurks around every corner. From turns Americana (Master’s Hands) to psychedelic garage rock (IRM), the gambit is fully covered. There are at times hints of the folkish psych-rock of The United States of America (In The End) and the intricately swirling complexities of Broadcast (Me and Jane Doe). The chanson française quality of Le Chat Du Café Des Artistes exists fully outside of her father’s oeuvre while at the same time unabashedly embracing her musical heritage with her father and mother, yet taking it a step further, thus making it fully Charlotte and fully 21st Century : sublime and grim all at the same time. This is by all accounts, a truly 21st Century album. Take with that what you will. A thread of sublime sadness mixed with a creeping sense of intrinsic hopefulness seems to float through every track of this album. At its core, this is an album full of hope and rejuvenation, albeit rough around the edges and uncompromising in its acknowledgment of the sorrows life can so readily and unsparingly hand out.
It can even be ventured that a certain sense of grim humor can be located within this album. This is finest displayed in the catchy, hooks and downbeats found in the first single, Heaven Can Wait. There is a hard-won sense of acknowledgment of the continuous slams to the psyche where it seems like the bad seems to just keep on comin’, but with a heart that knows that someday things will get better (even if it’s extremely difficult to believe).
Trick Pony has a nice, crunchy prog-rock downbeat while Greenwich Mean Time is unabashedly raw, jangly, and devilish. I could almost hear this being on a PJ Harvey record rather than a Charlotte Gainsbourg album ! A musical surprise lurks around every corner. This album is filler-free, and we’re all the better for it.
Not since Lee Hazlewood collaborated with Nancy Sinatra, has a better musical pairing been had until Beck and Charlotte Gainsbourg sat down for a brain-storming session. Even though Gainsbourg has released two previous albums, IRM comes across to be (spiritually) her first. This is a subtly exciting debut, obsessively listenable, versatile, and intriguing. At first it doesn’t strike as being an iconic album, but time will be the judge of that.