On Valentines Day 2005 Camille released her second album, Le Fil. She went on to win the Prix Constantin, a French music industry award modelled on the Mercury Music Prize. The album achieved gold status with over 100,000 copies sold. (Gold status is awarded to albums in Australia after a mere 35,000 sales.)  Now, due to a few albums of Bossa Nova covers of new wave and punk classics, Le Fil has finally found its way into our record shops.

In strange ways punk became this year’s soundtrack for the both the meek music fan and dinner party connoisseur. There’s the baffling success of Sandi Thom’s appalling, bastardised history lesson I Wish I was a Punk Rocker - a song with as much truth, honesty and likeability as the worst excesses of a North Korean propaganda extravaganza. And for the slightly more discerning there’s the double serve of after-dinner Bossa Nova takes on punk classics- Nouvelle Vague and Bande A Part.

It’s on these Nouvelle Vague albums that most of us pop music fans, who don’t happen to be French, first heard the beguiling vocals of Camille. She provided highlights on those records with a cruisey take on the Clash’s Guns of Brixton and her giggling version of Too Drunk to Fuck, which is surely the cutest the Dead Kennedy’s will ever sound.

Camille’s not as playful on her solo album, though she’s not as stern as she may appear on the album cover. It’s a bold, defiant stare and it’s an appropriately bold and distinctive album. Sure, this is far from a ‘punk’ album in sound, but it has certainly got the attitude – that uncompromisingly individual streak that’s glaringly lacking from the vast majority of contemporary music, let alone modern ‘punk’.

Her vocal acrobatics have led many to suggest that this is the pop version of Bjork’s Medulla album and it’s hard to disagree. Camille plays up the quirk factor with her vocal style, which incorporates beat boxing and hiccupping into her Parisian jazz theatrics. While Bjork’s upcoming collaborations with Timbaland may suggest a change of direction, her recent work has been astonishingly experimental; dividing her fans and reinforcing her loopy image as a puncher of journalists and wearer of swans (Who can forget that outfit?—Ed). Her recent releases have much in common with the grandiose spectaculars of her boyfriend – the sculptor Matthew Barney; epic, bold and fascinating, yet ultimately more admirable than accessible. Camille maintains just enough pop to avoid Bjork’s extremes, though there’s still a strong streak of kooky pretension.

Camille’s vocals are constantly thrilling and unexpected. She sings and scats, swinging from sweet to sinister, with a versatility that’s both thrilling and frustrating. There’s always a risk that she’ll push the ‘quirk’ factor just a little to far and stray into some ‘zany’ cabaret circus of vocal cartwheels and black flips – all show and no substance. Yet, maybe because she’s singing in that most romanticised of languages, the songs are seem to be far more than just excuses for flashy display. Her vocals never stray into warbling, drifting through many notes because it’s just too hard to hit one. In fact the whole album is held together by a single note that gives the album its title – Le Fil translates as ‘the thread’.

This thread weaves through jazz, soul, operatic and cabaret influences, creating a truly memorable experience. Much like Antony and the Johnsons’ I Am a Bird Now, this album will either leave you captivated or cringing.  You love Camille, you hate her, or you’ve never heard her – and there’s really no excuse in be in that last category.