What We're Listening To

REVIEW
It's been a bleak couple of weeks, hasn't it?

As January fades to black, the quality of new CDs and DVDs has sunk into the swamp, and the best of the bunch have been records about a divorce and a brain haemorrhage.

Following last week's Eels effort, musical "muse" Charlotte Gainsbourg emerges with a solid collaboration with Beck. That said, it's Beck who provides the push which gets this car out of the driveway, while Gainsbourg mainly sits in the driver's seat steering and making sure it doesn't hit any letterboxes.

Supposedly driven by Gainsbourg's medical treatment following her haemorrhage in 2007, IRM has bleeps and beats of its own, with Beck adding flourishes which verge from sweeping classic to stuttering electronic.

The title track is suitably clinical and robotic, while closer La Collectionneuse has an arty grandeur which suits the performer.

Gainsbourg whispery voice makes her a solid pilot for wild ideas, in that it's not so distinctive that it takes over the whole song. Her impassive delivery is underwhelming on songs like Greenwich Mean Time, but works when she mumbles about doctors who "drill my brain all full of holes and patch it up before it leaks".

The glad tidings are clearly out in the skip with the Christmas trees. But at least we're rid of Slade.