Arabesque [Audio CD] BIRKIN,JANE

On Arabesque actress turned singer Jane Birkin reworks another set of songs by her former lover and mentor Serge Gainsbourg. It follows on from 1996's Versions Jane. This time she's accompanied, live in Paris, by the Algerian and Romany arrangements of a North African band, and their quavering violin and tinny, clattering percussion form an appropriately exotic backdrop to Gainsbourg's examinations of passionate relationships and the sweet minutiae of love. Birkin, her entrance occasionally heralded by the complex and vibrant chanting of Moumen, is not technically the greatest of singers, but she works hard to extract meaning and emotion from the songs, thus lending depth to Gainsbourg's sometimes overwrought phrasings. There's variety here, too. "Amours Des Feintes", with its rolling piano, recalls Jacques Brel, "Baby Alone in Babylone" is like a cute Kurt Weill, "Close to the River" is a poem written by Birkin's brother's son, dead in an accident at 20, and the closing "La Javanaise" is a moving a cappella. And to think that Gainsbourg originally recorded "Je T'Aime?Moi Non Plus" with Brigitte Bardot, only calling in Birkin when Bardot decided the track might upset her husband. Had Bardot been a tad more selfish, the tasteful and touching Arabesque would never have happened. --Dominic Wills