Nouvelle Vague / Their Gallic music courtesy

The Nouvelle Vague could only be products of an absolutely specific space and time, respectively France and the early 2000s and at the same time a new century. It was the time when from modernity the world was beginning to move to postmodernity, one of the main manifestations of which was that the perception and mentality of the postmodern reached its peak and at the same time deified. The postmodern is the one defining element of the complex. The other is of course their trademark aesthetic, which could not be anything other than French, and indeed to the fullest.

Nouvelle Vague formed in 2003 in Paris. Their starting point was a phone call from the musician and producer Marc Collin to his fellow artist Olivier Libaux to suggest that they do together a cover of perhaps the best-known song of the almost legendary British group Joy Division, “Love will tear us apart”, in style and style bossa nova. The second was surprised by the proposal but found it very interesting and accepted it. So they put the idea into practice and its application followed a few more times, namely songs from the post-punk scene of the first half of the 80s, British, American and also European, arranged in bossa nova style and performed by new female voices, regardless of the fact that almost everything in their first performance was performed by men.

Aesthetics over content

The two musicians had the brilliant idea to call their group Nouvelle Vague. It was a name that simultaneously referred to three different things in as many languages, but with the same meaning (new wave) in all of them: the French nouvelle vague film movement of the 1950s, the new wave, as the post-punk music period was called , while bossa nova means the same in Portuguese. Their first self-titled album was released in 2004 and was an unexpected hit not only in France but also in several other countries.

Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux were not locked into their original formula. They kept from this only the young, unknown or even debuting female performers, whom they had not even heard (!) before the songs they performed, but in time they went further back, to punk but also further forward, reaching up to beginning of the 90s, while bossa nova continued to dominate but increasingly gave way to other Latin or jazz rhythms and orchestrations. Thus, their second album, “Bande a part” of 2008, was even more successful than the first – at the same time they were popular in our country as well. In the third, ‘3’, which followed a year later, they invited members of the bands whose songs they covered to duet with their singers, an admittedly original move, which added even more interest to their covers.

New life in old songs

Around then, however, the idea began to run out somewhere, mainly because they themselves abused it, reaching the point of releasing in 2010 a disc with songs that were previously unknown, which were attributed to their… female performers, as if they were something separate and different from the group. Thus followed a long “break” from their activities, with their last album being released in 2016, while from the one they had announced for the continuation there was only an EP the following year. The news of Olivier Libaux’s sudden death in 2021 led many to believe that Nouvelle Vague had ceased to exist.

Defying the predictions, however, Marc Collin found the strength and energy to prepare their new, sixth album in a row. Twenty years after Nouvelle Vague’s first record in “Should I stay or should I go?”, which was released a few days ago, the band is rechristened in its playful spirit. With renewed gusto, she applies what was her guide from the beginning, the “low-key”, elegant, gentle but also irresistibly sexy aesthetic of French pop of the 60s, to another 13 songs of the era from which they draw their material, infusing them with new breath, which transforms them into something familiar but at the same time completely different from the original performances.

From the two singles so far, “Only you” by Yazoo and “Shout” by Tears For Fears, to “This charming man” by the Smiths and the title song, perhaps the only romance of the politicized Clash but at the same time one of their hardest musical moments, which turns into a cobwebbed and tender nocturne, “Should I stay or should I go?” skillfully acrobats the dangerously thin rope between kitsch and elegance. Coming to its end, he politely bows not to nostalgia but to an innocence and carelessness that we need in such difficult times and departs with a sly yet good-natured smile.