Record of the Month
May  2005


Camille
Le Fil
Virgin France,
dist by Discovery

At the time of receiving this record, I had never heard of Camille before, and knew only that she is French. The photo on the cover makes me want to know more. A lone strand of twisted hair is strung across her face, just below the eyes, as she returns the camera’s gaze with a look that stops just short of insolence, surrendering nothing, ready for absolutely anything.

What will such a woman sound like? Better than anything you could dream of. Confident, adventurous and witty, Camille is full of ideas that she follows for exactly as long as they interest her; and then she stops. There are songs as short as 52 seconds, none that lasts longer than 3.58, and all fifteen are welcome, each slightly different from its neighbour, even the three that share the same title, Janine, parts I, II & III..

The album mostly features her voice - multi-tracked, playfully, cleverly. If that description makes you think of Laurie Anderson’s O Superman, you are not a million miles away. But where Laurie wasn’t so much a singer as a performance artist with a lovely speaking voice, Camille really can sing. And when it suits her, she does. But more often, she talks, she argues with herself, mumbles, thinks aloud. Most of it is in French, but every now and then an English phrase slips in or out, and half of one song, Baby Carni Bird, is in English.

The radio DJ picks through a new album like a jackdaw, looking for the shiny track to play. Unusually, and confusingly, each pass through this album yields a different winner. The first time, it was Ta Douleur (track 2). I declare a weakness for songs with hand claps, but this has all kinds of other virtues, including a melody and feel that bring to mind Randy Newman’s Mama Told Me Not to Come, but without actually plagiarising it.

Senza (track 10) has a lovely chiming sound that draws me back time and again.

At the time of writing, Au Port (track 11) is the one I play to lure friends and passersby into sharing my pleasure, wallowing in the indulgent games of this young Frenchwoman who seems unaware of how unusual she is. It has a clearer structure than some of the other songs, regularly returning to a catchy chorus and with a mellow trombone that provides a warm contrast to Camille’s high voice. The semi-operatic obligato near the end swings the vote – yes, this is the one for radio.

I’ve got this far into a review about an adventurous female singer without mentioning Bjork, and only do so now to say how much I prefer Camille. I don’t really ‘get’ Bjork – it feels like we can hear her thinking. Whereas with Camille, both the experiments and the emotional expression feel more natural, spontaneous, and convincing. If Laurie Anderson were to have produced an album by Carla Bruni, they might have come close to this. But what makes this album so extra special is the sense that nobody produced it all, it just sort of made itself. And if I’m wrong, and there was a calculating producer behind every move, please don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.

CG

This review appeared in The Observer Music Monthly in April

Since I wrote it, producer Majiker got in touch with our website feedback forum, to point out that the album is actually called Le Fil – The Thread – as represented by that line across the sleeve. I then met Majiker at Favela Chic in Paris where I was DJ for one night, and learned that his interpretation of the producer role is that it should be transparent, enabling the artist to achieve her ends. I realise now he had quite an influence, introducing an instrument here and there, but in ways that I’m sure Camille would acknowledge were beneficial. It still feels like her record.