Nouvelle Vague
The “Nouvelle Vague”, or new wave - playfully and perversely -
reinvented cinema. Now, professional music fans Marc Collin and
Olivier Libaux, cracking a joke and making an art statement by
dubbing their outfit Nouvelle Vague, are reinventing post-punk via
sultry, faintly kooky, bossa nova renditions of new wave classics
by the likes of Joy Division, the Specials, PIL, XTC, and their
post-punk ilk. Layering the in-joke further, “nouvelle vague”
translates to “new beat” in Portuguese, the native language of many
of the bossa nova guest vocalists. Their studio album A Bande
Apart, was presumably inspired by Jean Luc Goddard’s 1964 film
of the same name.
Given the duo’s name, it’s not surprising that Collin is a film
buff. He released Coming Home in 2007, a collection of
classic film soundtracks including Gato Barbieri’s Last Tango
in Paris and Michel Legrand’s score for the original
Thomas Crown Affair. Collin is scoring James Boss’ The
White Wall, a post apocalyptic sci-fi film.
“These days in film, you can’t compose the whole soundtrack like
Lalo Schrifin or John Barry used to do, it’s more difficult for a
composer now to really put their own personality into a movie. But
with this film, I can do the whole thing.”
His cinema obsession is something he shares with Philippe Cohen
Solal, a former cinema soundtrack composer, who leads modern
tangoists the Gotan Project, joining Nouvelle Vague on their
Melbourne sojourn. His latest project, The Moonshine
Sessions is a collaboration with former Bob Dylan sideman
Bucky Baxter. Enlisting such country luminaries as Jim Lauderdale
and David Olney, the album achieves a highly appealing dirt-floor
ambience; faithful to country while exploring a striking, if
delicate, marriage between delightful twang and electro tang.
Having selected Charlie Rich and Glen Campbell tracks for Nouvelle
Vague’s Late Night Tales album in 2006, Nouvelle Vague’s
Collin is by no means immune to country moods either.
Solal’s DJ-versus-pedal-steel interpretation of the album has
been a feature of recent Nouvelle Vague European shows, Solal being
an ’90s old house acquaintance of Collin.
Solal also took direct inspiration from cinema for Moonshine
Sessions. “I compare my work to a film director’s. I write the
story (the songs) and direct each singer like an actor to perform
the song with the right emotions. I cannot create music without
thinking of the different levels of soundscape; upfront or far
behind, our ears are hearing and we are feeling.”
Inspired by Blondie and the bands on Manchester’s Factory
Records whose songs he would cover years later, Collin’s musical
interests have roamed widely but his passion remains the post punk
era. “I am more a child of post punk, which was more musically
interesting than punk. Punk was extraordinary for the freedom, for
the politics, for the movement but musically I prefer post
punk.”
He curated a double disc of post punk curios and favourites in
2007, Nouvelle Vague presents New Wave, including
Joy Division’s live cover of the Velvet Underground’s Sister
Ray, and Etienne Daho’s version of Pink Floyd’s debut single
Arnold Layne.
“Post punk bands supposedly came from nothing but with this
compilation we can see they were inspired by lot of different bands
like the Velvet Underground, the Rolling Stones and black
music.”
If Collin remains a (post) punk at heart, the vocalists his duo
have employed to sing songs by Bauhaus ( Bela Lugosi’s
Dead) Killing Joke ( Psyche) and Echo and the
Bunnymen ( The Killing Moon) are anything but. Collin has
tried to employ vocalists - including Camille - with only a passing
familiarity with the material. There’s a sense of discovery in the
vocalists’ performances and it gives Nouvelle Vague their
X-factor.
“I only play the songs once or twice, so the vocalists remember
the melody, so they aren’t so familiar,” he says.
“If one becomes a really big fan of one song, you try and
remember everything about the way the singer was singing it.”
Collin says 20 tracks are already completed for another Nouvelle
Vague collection, comprising versions of songs by Wire, Soft Cell
and the Sex Pistols, in the form of God Save the Queen.
The highlights may lie in re-invention of the Human League’s 1982
smash Don’t You Want Me? and a duet with the Specials’
Terry Hall. “Imagine if James Brown and Aretha Franklin did
Don’t You Want Me? in the ’60s,” Collin says. “Our version
is like that! Terry Hall was very pleased what we did with
Friday Night, Saturday Morning on our first album, so we
duetted on Our Lips are Sealed.”
So, barring his own taste, what shapes the track listing on an
NV collection? “My ability to arrange it,” is the swift
response.
Australian music hasn’t escaped Collin’s keen ear either.
“Hunters and Collectors were a really great band. Mental as
Anything, I remember. I used to listen to that when I was
young.”
