Updated with some recent reports, it sounds like the French press had the title jumbled slightly, but most of the information they reported, including the details on the first single were correct.
It must be nice to be adored by both the film and music communities. When Charlotte Gainsbourg, put out the APB that she was looking for collaborators for her 2006 debut record 5:55, heavy hitters came running including Air who basically wrote all her music for her, Nigel Godrich (Radiohead, Beck) who produced the album and Jarvis Cocker and Neil Hannon from the Divine Comedy who wrote all her lyrics (Hannon’s group is vastly underrated… by everyone it seems).
Geez, must be nice, indeed.
For her sophomore outing she’s secured this songwriter some of you may know called Beck who wrote and produced her entire second record, titled IRM which is due November 30 in France, according to French website, LeMag [ed. note: the French mag originally called it MRI] The first single, apparently titled, “Master Hands,” hits September 15th and is followed by a duet with Beck titled, “Heaven Can Wait,” that hits on October 5th. Though according to Paste, it hits the U.S. in January 2010
Is this info legit? Are they making stuff up? Gainsbourg does spend a good chunk of time in France and we don’t have reason to doubt it, but it’s not 100% confirmed by anyone yet, including some French reporter friends of ours. So take that as you will. [ed. sounds like most of the info was on the money, and for all we know it could hit shelves in France in October, but that’s probably unlikely with the way things leak these days].
Gainsbourg is currently making headlines in the U.K. for her brutal turn in Lars Von Trier’s scandalizing and genital-mutilating 2009 unconventional horror, “Antichrist,” that co-stars Willem Dafoe and hits U.S. theaters in limited release on October 23. Gainsbourg’s harrowing performance as a grieving mother who loses her child and then becomes demonically possessed won her the Best Actress award at Cannes (here’s two separate reviews we wrote about the mordant and polarizing picture).
Evidently Beck began helping out in just a production capacity, but soon enough he started writing songs and lyrics with her. “I wrote a few, with her in mind, but when we spent time together they changed because I got more of a feeling of where she wanted to go. We got in the studio and I could see all the possibilities.”
Originally reported July 30, 2009.
Here’s the single from her last record, “Songs That We Sing,” which is fantastic.