Late last night i was listening to some songs before i went to bed and Nouvelle Vague’s “Killing Moon” came on through the mp3 shuffle thing. After that, it has basically been more or less on repeat right to this very moment. It’s a lovely song that opens with a soft, acoustic guitar strum along with sounds of rustling leaves, insects flying around and generally the type of thing you’d normally hear in the middle of the night. Which is exactly how much this song is a perfect companion to sitting around somewhere alone in the middle of the night, which in itself sounds kinda scary but it works i guess. The kicker of this song though is that it’s a cover of Echo & The Bunnymen, but it sounds so original that you’d never know unless you read it beforehand.
That’s the amazing thing of most of the songs i’ve heard so far from Nouvelle Vague’s sophomore album Bande à Part (released June 12th), is that even though it’s comprised entirely of covers (their self-titled debut album was also just covers) of that you’d never notice that they are indeed covers unless you really paid attention to the lyrics. Each song contains such an original touch that make them completely different from their counterparts. Lots of the tracks covered here are well-known (Echo & The Bunnymen to others like Billy Idol, Blondie and New Order) and even lesser-known (The Wake, Lords of the new Church, The Sound) 80’s new wave tracks.
I don’t know much about Nouvelle Vague themselves besides that the group consists of two mc’s, Marc Collins and Oliver Libaus. The vocal duties are handled by eight beautiful voices, who you can read more about each here and here. Their website describes their sound as a “marriage of new wave and bossa nova” which i don’t see at all here anything that resembles bossa nova sound, and if so it’s very minimal.
Nouvelle Vague | “Killing Moon” [Echo & The Bunnymen cover]
Nouvelle Vague | “Ever Fallen In Love” [Buzzcocks cover]
Nouvelle Vague | “Waves” [Blancmange cover]
Additional posts you may be interested in:
Entries (RSS)