New: French Music Podcast, Nouvelle Vague

There's a new edition of the French Music Podcast UK online, and as usual it features some great stuff.

On the menu for this edition is Botibol, Splendour in the Grass, Yelle, Team Ghost, Nouvelle Vague and many others.

French Music Podcast UK - Number 13 - 27th March 2011 by French Music Podcast UK

If there's a highlight from this edition for me, it's a track by Nouvelle Vague, from their album Couleurs Sur Paris. Nouvelle Vague are best known for their unique take on New Wave songs by artists like Joy Division, Depeche Mode and Echo and the Bunnymen but this, their fourth collection, sees them tackling songs that were originally hits by French artists.

The songs are all classics from the late 70s to late 80s period, the title track is a version of the Oberkampf song, and there are also versions of Kas Product's So Young But So Cold and Etienne Daho's Weekend A Rome. All the songs are done in the band's distinctive Bossa Nova/Easy listening style, radically different from their original versions.

Guest cocalists on the album include Yelle, Olivia Ruiz, Vanessa Paradis and Coeur de Pirate.

I don't know if the collection will engage so well with a non-French audience as much as their previous works, where in most instances the songs would have been familiar to the listener, even if that audience was a small but influential one that was well-versed in post 80s alternative sounds.

These songs require a different listening approach, as rather than comparing them to the original, the non-French listener has to take them at face value and then perhaps track down a more elusive original.

But the songs and the arrangements on Couleurs Sur Paris are so strong it should certainly introduce a few French classics to a much wider audience.

A highlight for me has to be their version of Noir Désir's Où Veux Tu Qu' Je R'Garde with Emily Loizeau, this a version from Le Live, Le Figaro's music programme.