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IRM
Charlotte Gainsbourg's new album IRM is out now
From Monday, January 25, 2010
To Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Charlotte Gainsbourg’s new album IRM (French for MRI the method used by doctor to see inside the body) is the stunning result of the collaboration between the iconic French actress and American musical auteur Beck. IRM is the follow up to 2006’s 5.55, which sold over 500,000 copies worldwide.
The new album’s title and its uneasy, apprehensive moods reflect Charlotte’s recent experiences. In 2007 she suffered a brain haemorrhage during a waterskiing accident, was subsequently operated on and had repeated scans. “You nourish the work with whatever you’ve been through,” she acknowledges. “The sound of the MRI scanner stuck with me. When Beck and I talked about how I wanted the music to sound, I played him the sound of the scanner – I’d found it on the internet – and said I wanted to incorporate it. I’ll never forget that sound.”
Looking back at her earliest recordings, she says “I have a real affection for ‘Lemon Incest’, I can feel a real innocence. There’s something so touching. I tried to listen again to Charlotte Forever, but the lyrics relate to being a teenager, it’s so different.”
Of course, she grew up with music, though some of it isn’t what you’d expect. “Blondie, the Grease soundtrack, Elvis, Georges Brassens, Sergeant Pepper, the Goldberg variations, Chopin. I remember Ian Dury from when I was about seven. His New Boots and Panties was the first record I bought.”
The fact that her parents are French composer, singer, actor and provocateur Serge Gainsbourg and the luminous actress and singer Jane Birkin has ensured that Charlotte has been in the public eye since her birth on 21 July 1971. But despite making her musical debut in 1984 duetting with her father on “Lemon Incest” and the release of her debut album Charlotte Forever in 1986, she had concentrated on acting until the release of 5.55. Charlotte first appeared on screen at age 13 and has made close to 40 films.
Nowadays, Charlotte is known for films that often challenge and make the viewer think. She most recently appeared in Lars von Trier’s controversial Antichrist, for which she 
won the Best Actress Award at Cannes. As Benedicte in 2005’s Lemming, her depiction of disassociation and anxiety was utterly affecting. The surreal The Science Of Sleep was directed by Michel Gondry, the creator of Radiohead’s “Knives Out” video. Radiohead producer Nigel Godrich worked with Charlotte on 5.55. Such links often crop up in Charlotte’s world.
She was also one of the Bob Dylan characters in Todd Haynes’ 2007 film I’m Not There. Her waterskiing accident had occurred weeks before the film’s Venice Film Festival showcase. “I had dreadful headaches, not being able to open my eyes. I’d never had migraines, and I imagined it was what migraines were like. But I was later told it was much much worse. I had to take really strong pills to even stand up. I went to Venice and was able to do it, but when I came back my sister told me that this wasn’t normal and that I should see a doctor. They couldn’t believe what they saw, they said I should be paralysed, or even dead.”
The doctors found that the accident had caused a haemorrhage with blood pressing on her brain. As for the treatment, she explains “it was a question of drilling a hole in my head.”
Following the September 2007 operation, Charlotte had repeated MRI scans – at least 20. “It became like a habit, to convince myself there was nothing wrong any more.”
During her six months convalescence, Charlotte began thinking about making the follow up to 5.55. Naturally, the accident and its aftermath loomed large. After working with French electro-moodist duo Air on 5.55 she wanted “to get on a different track, to go in a new direction.” Recalling meeting Beck at a White Stripes show she had been to with Nigel Godrich – he had also produced Beck – she got in touch to see whether he would be interested in working together. Beck was hardly unaware of Charlotte’s family background: his admiration for Serge Gainsbourg surfaced in 2002 on the Sea Change album, which borrowed parts of Gainsbourg’s classic Melody Nelson for the track “Paper Tiger”. Another one of those links came through Beck’s father, David Campbell – he had arranged the strings on 5.55.
Sessions began in LA in Spring 2008 at Beck’s home studio. For his first full album for another artist, Beck composed new material. He also had a few already-written songs in mind. But as he began feeling what Charlotte wanted, everything was reshaped. Charlotte would give Beck fragmentary lines, which he transformed into finished lyrics. She noticed it was “like how my father worked, he took all these pieces and created something amazing.”
“Masters Hands” was the first song they worked on. Charlotte was stunned by Beck’s words. “He wrote ‘drill my head.’ He didn’t know about my operation.” Three tracks were completed at the initial session: “Masters Hands”, “In The End” and “Heaven Can Wait”.
Charlotte soon realised they were compatible and that making an album was possible. “Beck was always open. It made recording much easier than with 5.55, where I was so shy. When we recorded ‘La Collectioneuse’, I could hear my voice was very nervous and wobbly. Beck loved it. He had this thing that the first takes were the best. I never doubted Beck’s judgement. There’s a spontaneity you can’t retrieve afterwards. It’s like in film, when you look for signs of life in these accidents.” It’s little coincidence that “La Collectioneuse” is also the title of Eric Rohmer’s 1967 film about manipulation and mind games, the first of his Six Moral Tales.
Musing on the relationship between recording and shooting, Charlotte says “I’ve been doing films for so long, that’s my real job. Singing is still a real discovery as I don’t feel as confident or comfortable with it. It is thrilling recording. It wasn’t hard work, but quite troublesome at times. There’s more spontaneity than you have with filming. You have the feeling you could go anywhere. It’s much more personal than film – Beck’s work is like a part that you are playing – he’s making me say something, the words become yours. You are not erasing yourself.”
Overall, there were three main sessions, each separated by Charlotte’s filming assignments. The first was Lars von Trier’s Antichrist; the second was Patrice Chéreau’s . Returning to LA and Beck after completing Antichrist, Charlotte found she was colouring the music with her mood. “Each session was stopped by a film I had to do,” she confirms. “Each film is an experience you take from, like baggage you carry. I spent three weeks in LA recording after the Lars von Trier shoot. I was quite moody. I described to Beck what I’d gone through, the whole story. Although I didn’t feel the film had tainted me in a dark way, it had given me a fragility. Beck always made the effort to take it somewhere else. After that, I made Persécution, a much more normal film!”
Each song was built up from a bare skeleton. “We always started each song with a rhythm. I wanted to use the sound of the MRI scanner, which fitted with that. I wanted the songs to talk about intimate stuff. I didn't need a disguise.”
A highlight of the sessions was completing the string parts at LA’s Capitol Studios with Beck’s father, the arranger David Campbell. “It was a mythic room, where Frank Sinatra recorded. It’s wonderful to bring a classical body to pop, a strange combination of modern and ancient. Seeing David conduct was amazing. And seeing where the music was going. Beck always knew how he wanted to add strings on some parts. It was the missing link, filling the spaces Beck had left.”
Using his father’s arranging talents for IRM was in keeping with Beck’s suggestion that there should be a link with 5.55, ensuring that the new album was an evolution, not a total break with the recent past. Indeed, Charlotte says “the slower, trippier tracks make me think of Air. Some songs had a very different feeling to that, but there is always a link that fits with the others, like a story, with chapters that work together.”
This literate approach is what makes IRM so striking. It’s an album that presents many moods, some high and some low and in that sense it’s like a crafted novel or a powerful film. Asked what she hopes those buying IRM should expect, Charlotte says she wants people “to not know what they’re buying. To be surprised!”
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