 |  |
Nouvelle Vague
Nouvelle Vague is a French musical collective led by musicians Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux. Their name is a play on words, meaning "new wave" in French. This refers simultaneously to their "Frenchness" and "artiness" (the '60s new wave of cult French cinema), the source of their songs (all covers of punk rock, post-punk, and New Wave songs), and their use of '60s bossa nova-style arrangements.
Members, former members and contributors include many French artists who are now very well known on their own and considered as part of what is now called the "Renouveau de la chanson francaise" (the "Renewal of French chanson"): Anais Croze, Camille Dalmais, Phoebe Killdeer, Melanie Pain, Marina Celeste and Gerald Toto. On their first album, Nouvelle Vague, the group resurrected classics from the New Wave music era, and reinterpreted them in a bossa nova style. The songs were stripped back to acoustic arrangements with lithe shaker rhythms achieved by gathering a parade of chanteuses from all over the world (six French, one Brazilian and one New Yorker) to cover bands including XTC, Modern English, The Clash, Joy Division and The Undertones. The various female singers on Nouvelle Vague only performed songs they had never heard before, to ensure that each cover would have a unique quality. Their second album, Bande a Part, includes versions of "Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)" by Buzzcocks, "Blue Monday" by New Order, "The Killing Moon" by Echo & the Bunnymen and "Heart of Glass" by Blondie.
|
