Nouvelle Vague

Nouvelle Vague (France) is a project created by French musicians Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux and a number of female singers. The group's albums consist in brazilian fashioned covers of (primarily) new wave songs (hence the name "Nouvelle Vague"). The covers include songs by Dead Kennedys, The Smiths, Joy Division, Public Image Ltd., Depeche Mode and Bauhaus. Each singer only performed songs they were not previously familiar with, to ensure that each cover would have an individual interpretation.

With a name that means new wave in English and nova onda in Portuguese (which is the meaning for bossa nova, a new music fashion), Nouvelle Vague's moniker neatly sums up the group's concept: remaking classic new wave singles with a Brazilian pop twist. Libaux played with various French pop bands during the '90s and began working with Collin in 1998. For Nouvelle Vague, Collin and Libaux recruited half a dozen French and Brazilian vocalists who were unfamiliar with the original versions of songs like Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart; and XTC's Making Plans for Nigel to ensure that their renditions had their own identity. Nouvelle Vague was released in Europe in 2004 and received U.S. distribution in spring 2005, which coincided with tour dates in locales as far-flung as Shanghai, New York, Los Angeles, and Rio de Janeiro. Nouvelle Vague's second album, A Bande a Part, arrived in summer 2006. The following year, the team returned with Coming Home, a collection of songs from films given the Nouvelle Vague treatment. New Wave, a collection of covers by new wave artists, also arrived in 2007.

One of the singers involved in the project has released solo work as Camille.