CHARLOTTE GAINSBOURG – IRM
IRM means ‘magnetic resonance imaging’ in French, and is the name of Charlotte Gainsbourg’s third album. This should give you some idea of what it’s like to listen to: unnerving, and a little bit alienating. It sounds as if it would be listened to by disaffected hipsters in an exclusive vodka bar hidden in the industrial bloc of a large European city; it is not a very warm album. You should probably also know that it has Beck on production duties, and somehow involved in the song-writing as well. Thus, it sounds quite a bit like Beck’s Modern Guilt, with lots of crisp, funky drums, bass jams and a slight smattering of orchestral embellishments. The make-or-break element is Gainsbourg’s voice, which to this reviewer was pretty lackluster. She doesn’t seem to be human, or anything more than a whisper and the hint of a French accent. Even at the album’s highest points (the Beck-featuring single Heaven Can Wait, Time of the Assassins) there never seems to be any meaningful lyrical content, and her voice never breaks any barriers, preferring a comfortable, cute lah. There are some good bits and beats now and then, but nothing worth sticking around for. A nicely produced, fairly boring album.
**1/2
