Fire Nicolas Godin

Sometimes it takes a personal tragedy to catalyse an artist’s practise, a crack in everything, to paraphrase Leonard Cohen, that let’s the creative light in. Just such a traumatic fissure occurred in Charlotte Gainsbourg’s life in late 2013 with the sudden death in Paris of her half-sister, the fashion photographer Kate Barry. Reeling from the news and inevitably plunged into an extended period of grieving, the distressing event had transpired just as Charlotte was initiating activity on a new album, the successor to 2010’s IRM.

Sometimes it takes a personal tragedy to catalyse an artist’s practise, a crack in everything, to paraphrase Leonard Cohen, that let’s the creative light in. Just such a traumatic fissure occurred in Charlotte Gainsbourg’s life in late 2013 with the sudden death in Paris of her half-sister, the fashion photographer Kate Barry. Reeling from the news and inevitably plunged into an extended period of grieving, the distressing event had transpired just as Charlotte was initiating activity on a new album, the successor to 2010’s IRM.