After collaborating with Air on her previous album, Charlotte Gainsbourg’s Francophone dream-pop has since undergone a darker transformation. Musical experimentation with Beck and medical procedures following a waterskiing accident gave birth to Gainsbourg’s most recent brainchild, “IRM” (the French acronym for MRI).
Gone are the tender, hesitant vocals; they’ve been replaced by odd assertions, dark whispers and in-your-face eccentric thoughts that harbor unsettling elements on every track. “IRM” wanders heedlessly on the line of the surreal. And while Beck’s hand is detectable throughout the album, it serves primarily as a ground for her otherwise day-dreamy cloud walk through clear and stormy.
Beck and Gainsbourg collaborate on “Heaven Can Wait,” but the nature of this track is most fully revealed in the jarring, yet inviting, bizarreness of the music video. The song poses a carefree and upbeat attitude, yet the video speaks of everyday instances misshapen and malformed, so they are alien and familiar at once. Its brevity belies its impact, as the collection of scenes is the equivalent of experiencing an entire art gallery in less than three minutes. The real disconnect is the abruptness and lack of resolution. As a cinematic device, it develops a yearning for more. A yearning that is never fulfilled.
In a later track, “La Collectionneuse”, Gainsbourg strikes this chord again, but in a more subtle, meditative way than the video’s abusive push-pull. Lyrics like, “I add up all these moments/In a long narrow ledger/Decimals of pain/Integers of pleasure,” add to the album’s essence — little bits of otherworldly thoughts that are recognizable yet irresolvable.
Even though “IRM” seems trapped in this emotional, dream-like netherworld, it meshes and plays well, just as Beck and Gainsbourg’s collaboration does. It sounds both candid and elegant. “Time of the Assassins” demonstrates this the most. In it, Gainsbourg muses, “And can something change/And still feel the same/The beginning’s the end/I start all over again.”
“IRM” was released Jan. 28 and is available streaming on Charlotte Gainsbourg’s Web site.
Give it a try. You’ll feel right at home in a place you’ve never been.