Compiled by Marc Collin and Gilles Leguen of French musical collective Nouvelle Vague, and clearly inspired by Jarvis Cocker and Steve MacKay’s recent ‘trip’ down memory-lane, the New Wave comp features an absolutely cracking collection of covers by some of the great names of 80’s First-Wavers and Synth-Acts like Visage, Devo, OMD and Gary Numan.
Why have they done it? Who cares. Anyone who remembers the early eighties will understand: peddle-pushers, one-finger synth parts, a loquacious disregard for dancing or changing chord patterns, bonkers pierrot clown costumes, lashings of white-up, solarized-colour videos, awkward special effects and absolutely dozens of middle-class boys and girls saving up their pocket money for the latest Juno, JX or Polysix. And without all the additional distractions that modern-day living can bring, like crystal clear digital sound quality, one-touch recording and low-cost recreational drugs.
So what can we look forward to? Fictional pre-fab precursors to the likes of Gorlilaz, Silicon Teens (conceived by Mure Records creator, Dan Miller) doing a deliciously robotic version of the Kink’ ‘You Really Got Me’, Belgian-wavers Polyphonic Size’s krauty take on the Stone’s ‘Mothers Little Helper’ and Elton Motello’s now ubiquitous re-styling of Plastic Bertrand’s ‘Ca Plan Pour Moi’ – this time re-modelled as the seedy gay-love lament, ‘Jet Boy, Jet Girl’ (featuring the classic line ‘He gives me head’).
Other cuts worthy of your undivided attention include Antenna’s ‘The Boy From Ipanema’, Jo Lemaire + Flouze’s ‘Je Suis Venue Te Dire Que Je M’en Vais’ (Het Belgisch Pop & Rock Archief – circa ’79), Etienne Daho’s ‘Arnold Lane’, Visage’s ‘In The Year 2525’ and Paul Haig’s ‘Running Away’.
2 CDs – and lotsa surprises.