It's dirty 'cause it's French.

My first encounter with Charlotte Gainsbourg was through a 2006 film, La science des reves (The Science of Sleep), a film by Michael Gondry. I chose the film to watch on one of those nights in college where you just want to be alone and watch a film no one would ever want to watch with you. So I drove my car to Hollywood video probably after a snack pit-stop at Wegman's, and went straight to the foreign film section looking for something French and weird. (Last time I did that I ended up with a movie where a sister sleeps naked with her brother every night and watches him masturbate.*) La science des reves It also featured Gael Garcia Bernal, who I am infinitely attracted to, so I took it home but ended up falling in love with Charlotte Gainsbourg.

She plays Stephanie, that girl that I think I am when I walk around the streets listening to Air (Which is more than appropriate because she recorded an album with them.) Gael Garcia Bernal plays Stephan, the guy you stare at on the subway and invest an entire romantic background and unique past to, but if you ever actually talked to him you would be let down because he actually works for a Republican think tank and you only thought he was cool because he missed last week's hair cutting appointment in order to lobby for Scott Brown. That shaggy hair and slightly provocative beard scruff destroyed our weak attempts at health care.

I digress. Watch The Science of Sleep and try not to fall in love with Ms. Gainsbourg.

Cute. But then you dig a little deeper and hit the 1980s. A weird time for the U.S...imagine what it must have been like in France. I suppose it could be summed up in this one video featuring Charlotte as a young girl, and her FATHER, Serge. She is twelve years old.

WARNING: Do NOT watch this video with other people in the room, unless you are COMMITTED to creeping them out. Full commitment.



OK. I promised myself I wouldn't look up the translation because of pure fear. I don't want to be further creeped out. BUT I AM COMMITTED TO YOU. ALL THREE OF YOU THAT READ MY BLOG. (Hi Mom.)

OK here is a rough translation (my French isn't that good so help me out here Emily please.)

Citrus zest
Lemon incest
I love you I love you I love you
more than any other, Papa,
Naive like a fabric of Nierdoi Sseaurou (I have no idea what that is.)
Your kisses are so soft.
A love that (something) never together
Is most beautiful, rare, most disturbing
Purest more intoxicating
Exquisite draft
Delicious child
My flesh and my blood
Oh my baby.

Repeat again and again through the song, until the public is thoroughly creeped out, but not the French public, they just play it in their malls at Christmas time without thinking twice.

Quote from Wikipedia: "To date, the song is the 630th best-selling single of all time in France."

Godless country.

Back to the review- if you can get the past 7 minutes out of your head. The Charlotte Gainsbourg/Beck album, IRM, is awesome. According to Pitchfork (that has an infinitely better research team than 'Blues), IRM is french for MRI, the medical scanning device Gainsbourg probably needed a lot of after her water-skiing induced hemorrhage in 2007. I will only give it an A- because I got too enthusiastic too soon, which is never a good sign. Her raspy, whispery voice is nothing to pay concert tickets for, but it works so well with Beck's production, whose influence is unmistakable. If you ever wished Air was more marketable, IRM is the album for you! She sings mostly in English but switches to French for a couple songs, most notably, "Le Chat du Cafe des Artists." My favorite track might be the opening one, "His Master's Hands."



Here is the single, a Beckish duet that I would call abstract, bizarre, even eccentric if I hadn't just watched Lemon Incest about 500 times:








Word on the Bliss Street is that Charlotte Gainsbourg is the new Lady Gaga. You heard it first on the 'Blues.











*HA you are just DYING to know that name of that film aren't you?! How dirty. The Dreamers by Bernardo Bertolucci (2003).

PS. New Midlake album coming soon. Stay tuned.