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Baker's Dozen

Inhabiting The Music: Charlotte Gainsbourg's Favourite Albums
Jeremy Allen , April 25th, 2018 07:45

Ahead of her appearance on The Quietus' stage at this year's Field Day Festival, Charlotte Gainsbourg takes Jeremy Allen through her favourite albums, from Portishead to Bach, Lou Reed to her dad

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Heinrich Schütz - Kleine Geistliche Konzerte
In French it's called Petits concert spirituel. It's with castrato voices - two very high boy's voices. And it's very religious. I'm not at all religious and I would be more attracted to my father's religion than the Christian side. And I must say the religious aspect has nothing to do with the fact that I chose it. I dunno how I discovered this album but I've always been very responsive to boys' voices before they break. Maybe there's something about the transience where you know how precious it is because it won't last. It's an album that I have to listen to on my own because everybody in my house hates it, but to me it just lifts me up. There's something I find completely beautiful and, I dunno, it's very trippy to me. It's in German so I have no idea what they're saying, but I know it's religious. There's an energy that's quite weird. 

My father was Jewish and my mother is Church of England, so I'm both. But he hated religion. Even before the war his family were never religious. I had a spiritual attraction when I was 13 and he didn't understand what was going on with me at the time. He was sort of embarrassed, but at the same time he didn't criticise anything, but I could see that it wasn't really something he understood [laughs]. I fell out of that a few years later. I think it's quite normal at that age to want to belong.