Nouvelle Vague

Born in the early 2000s in Paris around arrangers Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux, the Nouvelle Vague project is dedicated to reinterpreting punk, new wave and post‑punk songs from the 1970s and 1980s in a style that blends bossa nova, acoustic pop and lounge atmospheres. From the start Nouvelle Vague invited a number of singers from the French and international scenes, including Camille and Mélanie Pain, and developed a variable lineup in which female voices are central. The first album, Nouvelle Vague, released in 2004, established the principle of stripped‑down covers; it was followed by Bande à part (2006) and 3 (2009), which expanded the repertoire to include key anglophone bands of the period. With Couleurs sur Paris (2010) Nouvelle Vague applied the same approach to tracks from the French new wave and pop scene of the 1980s, while I Could Be Happy (2016) mixes new covers with a few original compositions. On stage Nouvelle Vague presents itself as a modular collective, alternating intimate formations and fuller configurations, performing both in contemporary music venues and at general festivals. Since Olivier Libaux’s death in 2021, Marc Collin has continued the project, which keeps exploring this gentle transposition of rock and new wave repertoires into a more subdued, velvety universe.