Charlotte > Serge?

Charlotte Gainsbourg
Album: IRM
Trick Pony

Charlotte Gainsbourg, daughter of?  Yup.  Charlotte Gainsbourg, actress?  Sure.  Charlotte Gainsbourg, brilliant pop singer?  Nah.  Wait.  Seriously?

Yup.  Damn.  This is so good.  Can't even begin to describe what a revelation this is for me.  She's great in Antichrist, granted, and she's notorious for her creepy duet with her dad, but there's no way in hell I could've anticipated how interesting and drop-dead cool her music is.  I mean, I didn't even know that she was a contemporary musician.

I fucking love these sorts of "Jesus what the hell was that?!" finds.  Gonna buy her CD this afternoon.

IRM is a collaboration between Gainsbourg and Beck, which is also a revelation, but perhaps not surprising given Beck's album Sea Change.  (For more info on this connection, check out the final link in the "Serge Gainsbourg" post below.)  IRM reminds me somewhat of the Nico / Velvet Underground collaboration, chanteuse backed by rock godliness.  You gotta check it out.

Incidentally, Gainsbourg and Beck performed much of the album live on the great radio program, "Morning Comes Eclectic," KCRW (Santa Monica NPR affliate).  You can watch the entire broadcast here.

Lastly but not leastly, while the Letterman performance is notable for many things, my favorite moment is when Dave wanders over to the band and, after addressing another young women, introduces himself to our heroine with, "Are you Charlotte?"  Guess he's not a Lars von Trier fan.