Charlotte Gainsbourg

Charlotte Gainsbourg has pulled together a crack team of indie pop collaborators for her first album in two decades, including Air (in rare guitar-toting mode), Beck's producer, Pulp's Jarvis Cocker and Divine Comedy's Neil Hannon. At the center of it all is the impossibly thin singer, a laid-back natural with a buzzing core, acting out songs in a dreamy trans-Atlantic accent. On numbers like "The Songs that We Sing," Gainsbourg sounds a lot more like her English mother (actress/vocalist Jane Birkin) than her French father (Serge Gainsbourg, songwriter/professional provocateur).