Nouvelle Vague (album)
| Nouvelle Vague | ||||
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| Studio album by Nouvelle Vague | ||||
| Released | 9 August 2004 (UK) 2 November 2004 (France) 3 May 2005 (US) |
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| Genre | Easy listening, lounge, bossa nova | |||
| Length | 46:30 | |||
| Label |
Peacefrog (UK / France) PFG051 / PFG051CD (standard edition, 8/04) PFG062CD (limited edition, 11/04) Luaka Bop (US) |
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| Producer | Nouvelle Vague | |||
| Nouvelle Vague chronology | ||||
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| American release cover | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
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| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |
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| The Guardian | |
| NME |   |
| Pitchfork | (7.0/10) |
| Rolling Stone |
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| The Telegraph | (favourable) |
Nouvelle Vague is the 2004 self-titled debut album by the French band Nouvelle Vague. The album consists entirely of easy listening and bossa nova versions of songs that were written and recorded during the post-punk/new wave era. The band's name is a play on words, new wave and bossa nova being the literal translations, in English and Portuguese respectively, of the French phrase Nouvelle Vague, which is itself a reference to the French cinema movement of the 1950s and 1960s. The songs are recorded with female vocalists who had not previously heard the songs they would be covering.
Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux began work on the project in 2003, after Collin had the idea of covering Joy Division's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" in a bossa nova style. Libaux later explained: "I met Marc Collin during the 90's, at a friend's place. Marc was the first musician I met in years who I could talk [to] about new wave music. For some reason, at the end of the 80's, punk and new wave music had turned into a sort of old-fashioned music, which nobody was talking about anymore. Meeting Marc, I could talk about The Stranglers, The Cure and The Sisters of Mercy again. We then have worked on a couple of albums he was producing ... Starting Nouvelle Vague was sounding obvious for us, as our ideas were matching, and the songs were happening well and quickly." The album was produced and recorded over a period of eight months.
The Guardian included the album's artwork in a list of the ten "most beautiful sleeves of 2004". The newspaper wrote, "The band's covers feature sultry 1960s figures, the work of fashion designer Giles Deacon, with a self-consciously lo-fi feel." The album's art director was quoted explaining, "We were very anti-computer ... Each letter of the band's name was cut out by hand, but done so in a deliberately rigid manner, as a kind of whimsical nod to modernism."
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Wikipedia