The high point of Charlotte Gainsbourg's career in music so far came in 1985 with a single in France called 'Lemon Incest' which she sang as a duo with her father, Serge. Charlotte was then only 14 years old but would become quickly notorious across Europe for both the song, which she sang in a semi-orgasmic rapture, and for the video in which she romped around a bed with the semi-naked figure of the by now grizzled but still obviously lascivious Serge.
The track was immediately banned in several countries as a hymn to paedophilia and incest and the video damned as not much more than low-rent kiddie porn featuring a tramp fondling a nymph. Predictably, Serge himself - the master of provocation - shrugged off all criticisms, describing the track as 'a song to the purity of paternal love' and dismissing his critics as prudes with dirty minds. The track was, of course, a smash-hit in France and - alongside similar kinky and intelligent pop from the era from the likes of Les Rita Mitsouko and Catherine Loeb - has since become part of the essential soundtrack to the French 1980s.
Twenty years on, now in her early thirties and with a successful career as an actress behind her, Charlotte Gainsbourg has returned to music with an album that is every bit as daring and sophisticated as the best of her father's work. More to the point, 5.55 reveals Charlotte not so much as a gifted singer (as with her father, her vocal range is limited) but as a stunning interpreter of songs and situations.
The main themes here are sex, claustrophobia, travel, fear and sadness, all set to an ever-shifting musical background which moves from grand orchestral settings to intimate late-night chanson to sub-Kraftwerk robot pop. This is also a multi-layered album: there are hidden melodies which surface only on successive hearings. With her slightly-too-perfect English diction, Gainsbourg recalls not only her mother Jane Birkin but, also, Black Box Recorder's Sarah Nixey; the songs here are less vicious than Black Box Recorder's work but every bit as sharp and literate.
Despite the aid and influence of Jarvis Cocker and the Divine Comedy's Neil Hannon, and the slight trace of a south London accent which Charlotte betrays in her spoken voice, this is also a very French-sounding work. This is, however, perhaps less surprising given the presence of Air's Nicolas Godin among the credits (many of the musical motifs recall Air as well as Gainsbourg's magisterial L'Histoire de Melody Nelson). Jarvis, too, is now resident in Paris and has always been deeply steeped in the esoteric end of Gallic pop culture.
Sometimes it sounds as if this album could have been made at any time between the 1970s and now - this is testimony to the knowing cleverness of its conception and production. Most of all, with its supremely French mixture of melancholy and sensuality, it will provide the perfect soundtrack to the first chill days of early autumn.
Download: 'The Songs That We Sing'