Nouvelle Vague

Nouvelle Vague was founded in Paris in 2003 by producers Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux with a single idea: reimagine post-punk and new wave songs as hushed bossa nova, sung by a cast of mostly French female vocalists. The name is a triple pun, meaning 'new wave' in French, nodding to the French New Wave cinema movement, and translating the Portuguese 'bossa nova.' Their self-titled 2004 debut, cut in eight months, had sold more than 200,000 copies worldwide by 2006; the Clash's 'Guns of Brixton', written by Paul Simonon and one of the first songs the project was built around, becomes a whispered, sun-dazed lullaby in the hands of singer Camille, who performed four songs on the album before her own celebrated solo career. Their most recent album is Should I Stay or Should I Go? (2024).

From the notes for Episode 04 · fact-checked Sep 23, 2026.