Charlotte’s Diamond
JANUARY 5TH, 2010
Charlotte’s Diamond
We’ve never been terribly fond of math, but culture math is another story. For instance: New Year + cold weather = cool new music.
And the recent record we’ve got on repeat is our girl crush Charlotte Gainsbourg’s latest, IRM.
Written and produced by Beck, the album is decidedly more alt than her
last, and here Beck’s electronic eclecticism and quirky percussion
lends itself well to Charlotte’s breathy vocals. Case in point, the
title track, short for “Imagerie par résonance magnétique,” which we
know as MRI in English, incorporates Charlotte’s crooning over the
pulsating sounds of a medical machine and drumbeats. It sounds weird,
but it works.
The rest of the rhythms that fuse French and English, including a cover of the French Canadian Jean-Pierre Ferland’s song “Le chat du café des artistes,” are par excellence.
$16.99 at HMV, www.hmv.ca