When you’ve seen someone drill a grindstone into Willem Defoe’s leg, smash his testicles then give herself an autoclitoridectomy it can be a little strange when you encounter them again. But enough about my trip to California last year, this is about Charlotte Gainsbourg and her new studio/live double disk album release Stage Whisper. I’m going to put my cards on the table here, I really liked this. Insofar as genre goes, Gainsbourg bounces effortlessly back and forth from strange and discordant tracks like “Paradisco” to intimate, melodic acoustic ballads like “Memoir.” Overall, this is not music to relax to like Bon Iver, nor can you expect to be challenged by the ideas and instrumentation as consistently as Pink Floyd. Stage Whisper’s new music is the kind of music that would be played in a hip indie movie about sad people living in, let’s say, Brooklyn. And in the same way, the music is interesting and delightfully strange.
As with most studio/live albums, the most famous tracks tend to be in the live albums, as the live sections of these albums tend to be a “Best of” collection. However the studio albums section of the album would seem to be a better bet. From her film work (mostly with Lars Von Trier, Antichrist and Melencholia), I assumed she had all but lost her native French accent. Now, I see that she must have been working with vocal coaches during the recording of those films as well as the studio portion of Stage Whisper, because her French accent really comes out in a live setting. They’re most severe in the first two songs and they’re mostly gone by “Heaven Can Wait” but they make those songs seem pretty stilted as Gainsbourg struggles to put the appropriate emPHAsis on the correct syllABle. Overall, excepting those first songs, it’s a solid live effort, and worth your time.
Recommended tracks (studio): Memoir (highly), All the Rain, Anna
Recommended tracks (live): Heaven Can Wait, Just Like a Woman, The Songs That We Sings
- Peter Guilherme