Twenty years on, Nouvelle Vague returns with an unprecedented project: an album entirely dedicated to the catalogue of Depeche Mode, one of the most celebrated pop groups in the world for over forty years.
The idea was simple and radical — take these cold, synthetic songs, strip them down, and rebuild them somewhere else entirely. The album was recorded in two stages, on two continents. First in Rio de Janeiro, in February 2025, at the studio of the legendary Liminha, a key figure of Os Mutantes, with Brazilian musicians who instinctively grasped the connection between the melancholy of new wave and that of bossa nova. Then in Paris, where keyboards, accordions and guitars were added.
For the vocals, Nouvelle Vague returns to its original formula: one singer, one song. The cast brings together eleven artists from vastly different backgrounds — Skye Edwards (Morcheeba), Beth Hirsch, Flavia Coelho, Nouvelle Vague veterans Mélanie Pain and Phoebe Killdeer, Fredrika Stahl, Nedime Girsken, Eva de Marce, Lily Oaks, Morenike and Lisa Crawley — to perform thirteen tracks, from Enjoy the Silence to Ice Machine, via Personal Jesus, Stripped and Just Can’t Get Enough.
With artwork by designer Clara Kerneis, A Date with Depeche Mode is more than a new Nouvelle Vague album. It is the first chapter of a new collection — and a new beginning, more than twenty years in the making.