For the last few years, Parisian-born French-British model and songstress Camille Jansen has been primarily known as a Chanel muse, “cool style” icon, and Johnny Depp’s son Jack’s girlfriend. On her debut album, she confidently shows that there’s more to her.
One quick look at her Instagram page might give the impression that she’s just another good new model, and until the release of her debut full-length, that was probably true. However, right from the bluesy lo-fi opener ‘Loose Screw’, filigree conveying the ’60s atmosphere of the avant-garde art scene of Greenwich Village, it becomes evident that Jansen is first and foremost a singer-songwriter and that she is here for real. “I’m just waiting patiently for my man”, she sings, winkingly quoting Lou Reed. Add to it the eponymous music video with the cover art where she strolls around Los Angeles in an oversized suit reminiscent of David Byrne’s iconic outfit, and it becomes clear that her bag is definitely full of rare pieces of vinyl.
In 2021’s Louise EP, she was trying to conjure up something like a sad chanson française with minimalistic electronic arrangements that evoked average radio pop. There was even a traditional French tune à la Zazie or Angèle, ‘Je Ne Fais Que Rêver’. It seems that pretty soon, Jansen came to the realization that for more integrity and consistency, it’s better to dig deeper in time or just to be yourself. The Loose Screws demonstrates her striking awareness not only of personal tastes and inner state but also of the banana-sticker music era in general. This is where her signature knack for second-hand and vintage outfits came in handy, helping her complete the image of a counterculture rebel with a roaring guitar.
Although this record leans heavily on the “I live uptown / I live downtown / I live all around” aesthetic of the art rock playbook of that time, she still partly looks at this epoch through the lens of its modern heirs. ‘Rocky Revolution’ and ‘Take a Little off My Plate’, despite sounding like cuts rooted in ageless folk traditions, owe much to Angel Olsen’s and Sharon Van Etten’s approach to American music. ‘Was Always You’ simultaneously gives us the slight feeling of The Doors, The Libertines, and Kurt Vile. Yet, unlike many contemporaries like Beabadoobee, Olivia Rodrigo, or Willow Smith, who try to revive old tunes by borrowing genres’ most vivid elements, Jansen sounds as if her songs were sequentially soaked in all periods of rock history.
There’s music that is made on purpose and with an understanding of the industry and pop production rules, and then there are inevitable bursts of creative energy embodied in tunes that just have to be made, splashed out. Jansen doesn’t look like a well-thought-out deal or an industry plant at all. Among her peers who also actively reincarnate sounds of that time, she seems the most enigmatic, like a typical rock star of the past. Despite social media and some profiles and interviews, her persona is still hidden by a veil of inexplicable detachment, as if she were a character of Bertolucci’s The Dreamers or just an ordinary passerby on MacDougal Street where “buildings going up to the sky”.
There are a few dull moments, like ‘Mimi and Moe’ and ‘The Ballad of the Missing Woman’, which don’t hang with the whole record convincingly. After a wild ride full of atmospheric and self-confident slacker songs consisting of simple, repetitive, and hypnotic musical structures and street-level realism lyrics, such in-your-face rock offerings look clichéd, like blues and rock ‘n’ roll standards. Trying too hard to prove itself, they end up sounding like unfinished demos of a cover band. The paradox of The Loose Screws is that without a proper conclusion, the album would sound incomplete. At the same time, its final part, with the last two songs, makes all the weak spots of the LP more visible, highlighting its wilfully amateur atmosphere.
This shifts Jansen’s debut from a solid body of work, that could immediately add her to the likes of Nico, to a promising first step of a rock wunderkind. At the same time, based on her rebellious attitude and punkish, old-as-the-hills firm delivery, it’s valid to assume that she makes this music firstly for herself, as the likes of Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Nick Drake, or Amy Winehouse did. All of this circles us back to the almost innate authenticity of The Loose Screws, which makes Camille Jansen more of a punk than just a model.
