Le maximum pleasure principle

It sounds impossible. A band that remakes classic English and American punk, post punk and new wave songs from the late '70s and early '80s as suave lounge meets '60s bossa nova pop tunes sung with luscious female vocals? Leave it to the French to make it work. 

Led by the mid 40ish musician-producer duo Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux and based in Paris, the concept for the band is in its name. Nouvelle Vague, French for "New Wave," or "Bossa Nova" in Portuguese, is both a reference to the band's sound and a play on the French New Wave cinema of the 1960s.

Strong songwriting is key for the material Nouvelle Vague covers, and the band keeps to the roots of those songs: harmony, guitar chord progressions, melody and lyrics.

The band's recipe also includes a carousel of female singers in their 20s who are too young to have grown up with the original versions of Nouvelle Vague songs so are able to reinterpret the material in fresh ways based on the lyrics and the duo's acoustic arrangements. Camille, Anais, Mélanie and Marina are just some of the singers who have contributed to the project, though officially they are not members of Nouvelle Vague.

The band released their first, self-titled album in 2004, which included Joy Division's 1980 classic "Love Will Tear Us Apart" remade as a wistful ditty that manages to keep the emotional wallop of the original. "Guns of Brixton," recorded by The Clash in 1979, clearly loses its revolutionary edge on the album, but then, Camille revives it as a woman's sexy, vulnerable plea for police violence against her and her cause. The band's version of the Dead Kennedys' "Too Drunk to Fuck" from 1981 is a post-feminist masterpiece, and even "I Melt With You," by the lame early '80s new wave group Modern English sounds better than ever.

In 2006, Nouvelle Vague released Bande a Part, appropriating the name of Jean Luc Goddard's 1960s production company and his 1964 film. This release included "Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)" by The Buzzcocks, "Blue Monday" by New Order and Billy Idol's version of "Dancing With Myself" redone as a French late-night cabaret encore.

Nouvelle Vague 3, released in 2009, includes "Master and Servant" by Depeche Mode, a true S&M anthem redone with a Nick Cave, country-western swagger, and "All My Colours" by Echo and the Bunnymen, also revamped as a Nick Cave ballad with cascading piano. "Blister in the Sun," by The Violent Femmes, is a happy pop-cruise and a clear steer from bossa nova. The band also included contributions from the original artists, so Martin Gore of Depeche Mode sings with Melanie on "Master and Servant," and Terry Hall of the Specials sings duet on "Our Lips Are Sealed," as he originally did with the Go-Gos in 1981.

With such a successful formula of new approaches to new wave classics, the potential repertoire for Nouvelle Vague is endless, and the group has also managed to hit on the greatest happiness principle for fans of early punk, post-punk, new wave and all the sub-genres attached to the era.

Back in the day, fans of The Clash, The Buzzcocks or Dead Kennedys, for instance, wouldn't have been seen near a Depeche Mode or Modern English lover. However, all of these groups - and their fans - have now generally outgrown old rivalries and, regardless, are all lumped into the '80s new wave category by today's generation. The common denominator in all of Nouvelle Vague's material is timeless, classic songs from that era.

As Frenchmen, Collin and Libaux can mix and match musical styles without any genre bias. After all, they didn't understand English in their youth, when they first fell in love with this (in their opinion) mysterious and mostly melancholic music, so distinctions between punk, new wave and post-punk are pointless to them. 

Nouvelle Vague tours as a quartet, and this season the singers are Helena Noguerra from Portugal and Karina Zeviani from Brazil. For their live shows, the band also performs more energetic, dance-oriented versions of their songs. Nouvelle Vague is a treat for listeners two or three generations younger than the artists they cover, but even those who grew up with the original songs will be surprised by how great they still sound - even in such uncanny arrangements. 

Tony Ozuna can be reached at
features@praguepost.com