By JODY ROSEN

Charlotte Gainsbourg’s signature maneuver is a voice pitched between a hiss and a whisper. It is also her birthright. That dreamy whisper-singing was pioneered by her father, the Gallic pop great and provocateur Serge Gainsbourg, and perfected in his famous collaborations with Ms. Gainsbourg’s mother, Jane Birkin, the English actress and vocalist.

Ms. Gainsbourg has had a long and successful career as a film actress, starring in dozens of movies, including Michel Gondry’s “Science of Sleep” and Lars von Trier’s controversial “Antichrist,” for which she won the best actress award at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.

But as a singer, the legacy of her father looms large. Hits like the heavy-breathing Gainsbourg-Birkin duet “Je T’aime … Moi Non Plus,” from 1969, capture France’s sexiness and urbanity as surely as Bob Marley’s songs speak to the Jamaican soul .

Ms. Gainsbourg made her recording debut in 1985 at 13, a duet with her father called “Lemon Incest.” On Ms. Gainsbourg’s 2006 CD “5:55,” her first album after a 20-year musical hiatus, she sounded weighed down by her patrimony, singing in a voice delicate to the point of selfeffacing amid orchestral pop arrangements that explicitly echoed her father’s records.

“Just because my father was such a genius with his songwriting, his lyrics, his music - that doesn’t mean I have any gift,” Ms. Gainsbourg, 38, said in a telephone interview from her home in Paris. “I don’t believe in that. I have my own path. But the comparisons are constant. And the comparisons are heavy to wear.”

On “IRM,” her new album, which was produced and largely written by Beck, she still sings in that patented hiss. But she branches out elsewhere, ambling through folk-rock ballads, venturing into dance-punk and blues, and letting Beck swamp her voice in layers of distortion. The result is an engrossingly eclectic pop record and a kind of coming-out party: the first time that Ms. Gainsbourg the chanteuse has displayed the charisma of Charlotte Gainsbourg the actress.

It was a less happy kind of accident that spurred “IRM” in the first place. In the summer of 2007, Ms. Gainsbourg had a minor fall while water-skiing. Six months later she went to the doctor in Paris, complaining of chronic headaches. An MRI scan revealed that she had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and was lucky to be alive.

Ms. Gainsbourg underwent successful emergency surgery, and when she turned her attention to a new record in early 2008, she had two goals in mind: to sing about her medical crisis and to work with Beck, whom she had met some years earlier. “I’d admired him so much,” she said.

Beck said he thought it was crucial to avoid specific Serge Gainsbourg references. “I knew it was important to avoid outright pastiche, but more importantly, to help her find a sound that could be her own,” he said in an e-mail message.

“But she will always have to find a balance with where she comes from, honoring it, while retaining who she is and her own distinct difference.”

Ms. Gainsbourg studied classical piano as a child, but is staunchly self-deprecating about her musical ability.

“I’m attracted to but very intimidated by music,” she said. “I’ve never experienced any real creativity through music myself.’’

Now Ms. Gainsbourg has just embarked on her first American tour, with a band assembled by Beck, though she confesses to stage fright. “I have to find a way of fighting my anxiety,” she said. “I’m sure I’ll find a solution. Because it’s an experience I really want to have.”




In 1985, at age 13, Charlotte Gainsbourg recorded a debut with her famous father, Serge, called “Lemon Incest.” / PASCAL LE SEGRETAIN/GETTY IMAGES