Nouvelle Vague are a French group of musicians led by Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux. Their name is a word game referring simultaneously to their "Frenchness" and "artiness" (the '60s new wave of French cult 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 (bossa nova meaning "new wave" or "new beat" in Portuguese).
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 of Nouvelle Vague performed only songs they had never heard before, to ensure the uniqueness of each cover.
Their second album, ‘'Bande à Part'', includes versions of famous hits like "Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)" by Buzzcocks, "Blue Monday" by New Order, "The Killing Moon" by Echo and the Bunnymen and "Heart of Glass" by Blondie.
Nouvelle Vague gathers together many French artists who are not very well known on their own and considered as part of what is now called the "Renouveau de la chanson française" (the "Renewal of French chanson"): Anaïs Croze, Camille Dalmais, Phoebe Killdeer, Mélanie Pain and Marina Céleste.
