Nous Non Plus Cover To Release New Album, Cover The Unicorns

It's been said that everything sounds better en Francais, and here to prove it is Ménagerie, the latest album from Francophonic popsters Nous Non Plus, which includes an homage to "Tuff Ghost" by Montreal's Unicorns -- in French naturellement.

Though they sound French and have plenty of gall, Nous Non Plus (pronounced 'new non ploo') is a band out of New York City composed of five Yankees plus one Swiss-German, lead singer Céline Dijon. Most of them were previously in the faux-French band Les Sans Culottes. In 2005, several members of Les Sans Culottes staged a coup d'état--a grand French tradition, after all. What followed was a truly bizarre encounter in Federal Court with their former bandmates, lawyers, a blind judge, and a seeing-eye dog. Ultimately, it was settled: Nous Non Plus (literally translated to "us no more") was born.

NNP's eponymous first album, which BUST magazine said "overflows with confident savoir-faire," shot to the top 10 of the CMJ charts. Songs from the album have been featured on Gossip Girl and in European mobile phone commercials.

The band is renowned for their highly charged, sweat-inducing live shows. They've played in Paris, La Rochelle, London, Ljubljana (Slovenia), Canada, and across the US, occasionally touring with friends/labelmates Hello Stranger. In autumn 2008, they stormed the German-Polish border, playing a Green Party fête where Daniel Cohn-Bendit (aka "Dany le Rouge"), one of the leaders of the May 1968 student protests in France, danced his ass off (photographic evidence available).

Ménagerie (out February 3, 2009 on Aeronaut Records), their second album, was recorded over roughly a one-year period in New York, Paris, Los Angeles and Sacramento. Its title is a nod to the various friends who contributed to the recording sessions, including LA-based composer/producer Michael Andrews (Donnie Darko, Inara George, Brendan Benson, etc.) and drummer Joachim Cooder (Buena Vista Social Club, Hello Stranger).

The album was produced by Dan Crane (aka Björn Türoque, of Air Guitar Nation fame) who also produced their 2006 debut.

With their latest release, Nous Non Plus builds on their 60's French pop influences to explore a new sonic landscape--mixing Moog synthesizers with string sections, horns with distorted guitars. Imagine Gainsbourg and Bardot as 21st-century indie rockers: elegant, sexy, chic, multi-lingual.

Audio: Nous Non Plus - "Fantôme Dur (Tuff Ghost)"