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Taking the edge off

Nouvelle Vague puts an old spin on new wave
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September 26th, 2007 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
Bossa nova covers and sexy French girls have proved to be a winning combination.
Nouvelle Vague

When: Thursday, Sept. 27, at 7:30
Where: Palác Akropolis
Tickets: 290 Kč in advance through Ticketpro, 330 Kč at the venue

By Christian Patrick
For the Post

What would The Clash have sounded like if its musical angst had been rearranged and played on acoustic guitars, with shakers, bongos and other South American percussion instruments added to the mix? How about replacing Joe Strummer’s signature scratchiness with the sweet, sexy voice of a young Parisian starlet under the guise of a 1960s Brazilian chanteuse?
Okay, so it’s not exactly an obvious marriage of ideas. That is, unless you’re the French sensation Nouvelle Vague.
By any name — new wave in English and bossa nova in Portuguese — Nouvelle Vague is the brainchild of French composer and producer Marc Collin. One day, he had an epiphany: Rework all those forgotten hits of the post-punk and new wave era of the ’80s and take them in a completely new direction.
To help realize his vision, Collin enlisted fellow producer Olivier Libaux and French artists Anais Croze, Camille Dalmais, Phoebe Killdeer, Mélanie Pain and Marina Céleste — part of a scene now called Le renouveau de la chanson francais (renewal of French chanson) — to record an album. The resulting 2004 eponymous debut went on to sell more than 200,000 copies worldwide.
“I thought about the idea of post-punk because people only talk about post-punk for its production and its attitude and the political things, but not so much the songs,” Collin says over the phone from his flat in Paris. “As a composer I realized that those songs are beautiful. Even if the bands only knew one or two chords because they were punk, they still wrote classic songs.”
Instead of giving modern studio treatment to hits from bands such as Joy Division and The Velvet Underground — as well as more obscure bands in Belgium’s Polyphonic Size and France’s Antena — the producer decided to revert to a 1960s production aesthetic.
To achieve this, Collin stripped down some of his favorite songs of the era and re-crafted them with a bossa nova twist.
“I remember a review in England that started, ‘Imagine new wave cult songs done with bossa nova by French people.’ That sounds horrible!” Collin laughs. “But on record it actually works. The concept is surprisingly pleasant and very interesting.”
Filmmakers agree. In 2005, Nouvelle Vague’s version of Modern Love’s “I Melt with You” was featured in the movie that started the “Brangelina” craze, Mr. and Mrs. Smith. And the band’s cover of The Dead Kennedys’ “Too Drunk to Fuck” showed up in Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse: Planet Terror this past summer.
Nouvelle Vague’s latest album, Bande a Part, includes covers of Blondie’s “Heart of Glass,” the Buzzcocks’ “Ever Fallen in Love with Someone” as well as New Order’s classic “Blue Monday.” The first track, Echo and the Bunnymen’s “The Killing Moon,” is a lesson in why Nouvelle Vague is much more than a cover band. There is a definite art to re-crafting these songs, and Collin’s skill at doing that, along with a smart song selection, has helped Nouvelle Vague avoid being branded kitsch.
“I imagined a little girl singing [‘The Killing Moon’] under the moonlight — like a kind of nursery rhyme,” Collin says. “I’m not sure if this song is sexy, but there is a sense of sensuality. It is something different. And the lyrics take a completely different meaning when it’s sung by girls.”
Despite all the accolades Nouvelle Vague has received, Collin doesn’t get caught up in the hype, and keeps a fixed eye on the reality of being an “it” band.
“We have all this success in Mexico, China, and in countries you wouldn’t expect,” he says. “I think it’s because we’re trendy — we are French and we have sexy girls on stage and it’s fresh. But I don’t think it will go on forever. We will do a third album — our last.”
All the more reason to catch the band at Akropolis this week. Bring your dancing shoes — or better yet, beach sandals.
Christian Patrick can be reached at features@praguepost.com


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