As a resident of Melbourne – Australia’s self-proclaimed culture capital – there is generally not much in terms of Arts in Sydney that makes me envious. Sydney can keep its sexy geography – we’ve got our Comedy Festival, our Film Festival and our Writers Festival just to name a few. Each January, however, jealousy sneaks in and I feel my cheeks burning and foot stamping as the Sydney Festival rolls around.

While I’m not even going to mention Festival First Night (Santogold, Grace Jones and the Cat Empire anyone?) the festival organisers have managed another little coup in securing perennially popular French singer Camille to play two headline shows in January at the Becks Festival Bar.

Camille launched into Aussie consciousness in 2006 with the single Ta Doleur from her 2005 release Le Fil. Triple J listeners voted Ta Doleur number twenty-six in the Hottest 100 that year, a notable achievement for a foreign language song. Le Fil also earned Camille accolades in her own country and in 2005 she won the French Mercury Prize-equivalent, the Le Victoire.

Despite her mainstream success, Camille consistently incorporates an experimental edge into her music. Le Fil was based around a single droning note that played unbroken through the entire album. “I wanted to use a drone for myself, on an intimate level,” she says. “Like what’s your drone, what’s your pitch, what’s your tuning, you know. I needed to tune myself to myself. So I started with a single note and I then built my songs around it…I needed something very bare and very simple to start with”.

Her latest release, 2008’s Music Hole, is a similarly thoughtful record that furthers Camille’s foray into a cappella that began with Le Fil. “I’ve always used my voice…at the start I used it more like a traditional singer, you sing on top of an arrangement and then I thought well I can be on the bottom of it too, I can do it all with my voice. I can arrange my songs, I can beatbox and so I started to do it”.

Camille’s embrace of a cappella pop has been labeled a brave move by some reviewers who perceive the style as a risk. Camille considers it differently however. “I think a cappella work is experimental because its all about voice and voice is very unique… it’s all over the world and a cappella works have always existed and it’s something very human and very universal at the same time so it’s experimental but it’s universal. I think it’s quite accessible. Anyone can sing”.

After Le Fil ( which was sung predominantly in French ) she felt it was time to switch to English – a language she has spoken from an early age owing to her mother being an English teacher. “I had already started with [French band ] Nouvelle Vague but they were only covers. Now I felt ready to write my own songs in English and try to explore that language too. I would like to explore as many languages as I can musically because it’s so rich”.

Camille also has a solid grasp on Spanish making her language skills quite formidable. “I think if I lived there I could speak fluently but I speak a little. I like to speak Spanish. But you can sing in languages that you don’t really speak. You can play with sounds without really mastering the language. I like to sing in other languages that I don’t speak”.

Those getting along to see Camille at the Sydney Festival or other shows she’s playing around the country are in for a display of serious vocal versatility.