Charlotte Gainsbourg says she wasn’t out of her comfort zone when she made her new album, IRM, with Beck. Of course, Gainsbourg’s comfort zone isn’t like yours or mine. The French actress-singer was 12 when she recorded “Lemon Incest” with her father, Serge, and then there’s 2009’s Antichrist, the shattering Lars von Trier movie that landed Gainsbourg the best actress award at Cannes last year for a performance as fearless as any we’ve ever seen. Singing the blues for Beck on the song “Dandelion” wasn’t so tough, then, even if the genre is so alien to Gainsbourg that she’d never heard the name Robert Johnson until her collaborator mentioned it.

“He had influences that he talked about quite freely, and I needed to learn a lot of them,” she says with a chuckle, speaking to the Straight from the Chí¢teau Marmont in L.A. “‘Dandelion’ and ‘Me and Jane Doe’ are filled with references to American culture, and the landscape, and I loved the idea that I was diving into something that was very far away.” Gainsbourg was hell-bent on making an album aggressively different from the classic Gallic pop of 5:55, her 2006 collaboration with the likes of Air, Jarvis Cocker, and Neil Hannon. Hence the call to Mr. Hansen, who ended up producing and co-writing IRM. “I called Beck very simply because I love his work,” she says. “But I didn’t imagine what my voice would be like inside his work, whereas with Air I could imagine. Surprise was part of what attracted me, just to be able to explore with him.”

The Beck imprimatur is strongly felt on tracks like the clattering “Master’s Hands” and the barrelhouse pop song “Heaven Can Wait”. And he was definitely onboard with Gainsbourg’s idea—which came during treatment for a brain hemorrhage—of sampling an MRI scanner for the robotic title track. “I think it meant a lot to him, too,” she reveals, “because I think he’s been through that. I think he related to it.” Meanwhile, numbers like the exquisite existential lullaby “In the End” and the swooning “Time of the Assassins” wouldn’t sound foreign on a Francoise Hardy album, marking a concession to Gainsbourg’s natural place in French cultural royalty. She’s an extraordinary artist in her own right, but the family name adds a frisson to the idea of catching a rising icon who, having made only three records in 26 years, is finally embarking on her first tour. Admittedly, there is a similar thrill in hearing Gainsbourg dish a little about her home life.

“I remember my father was listening to his music all the time,” she recalls, “and I thought, ‘How pretentious!’ He listened so loud and all the neighbours would come in and say ‘Can you turn down a bit?’ And then when I did the records, it’s true, I listen to myself all the time. Because you have to! I mean, I listen to myself so much that my children must feel exactly the same.”

Georgia Straight, April 2010