(Peacefrog/Creative Vibes)

The key word when dealing with Nouvelle Vague is TASTY. Every damn thing to do with this release is nothing but… tasty. Take the name itself – “Nouvelle Vague” it translates to “new wave” in French and “bossa nova” in Portuguese. Darn its producers Marc Collin (member of Volga Select and Avril and releases some killer works on Output and F-Communictaions) and Oliver Libaux know what’s goin’ on.

They’ve taken various tunes from the early 80’s new wave scene and totally reworked them in an innovative groovy bossa nova style. Hell yeah!! Innovative concepts like this one in music rarely deliver the goods but this is definitely not the case when dealing with this project.

Collin and Libaux have installed some superb musicians here including eight female vocalists. The execution is of a very high quality – enough to make each track feel like it is different to the last even though there is a lot of common acoustic qualities across this release.

New life has been pumped into these killer tunes which include “Love Will Tear Us Apart”, “Just Can’t Get Enough”, XTC’s “Making Plans For Nigel” and the Dead Kennedy’s “Too Drunk To Fuck”. Tempos have been slowed down and phrases reconfigured to create a perfect edgy cruisin’ ambience.

One of the key features here is the use of contrast. The songs seem to gain an new poignancy and sexiness as they are drift along on top of this new bossa nova re-spin. Hearing the lyrics like ‘you’re to drunk to fuck… too drunk… to fuck…” sung gently over an new warm acoustic meandering is something to behold. Very tasty indeed!