No You is the duo of Suzanne Kraft's Diego Herrara and Davy Kehoe of Wah Wah Wino renown, who debut here with a 10 track collection recorded in LA when the pair had separately relocated to the city. The press release states that it's not a particularly LA sounding LP, though I'm not so convinced - the intersecting highways of an arterial city of constant traffic and burning hills that meet lapping shorelines are easily identified in a set of songs that flick between dissociative dreampop and motorik pulse. If LA doesn't sound like this, it really should, and there's a whole new wave of shoegaze influenced bands in the city that speak to this truth. Given who is involved, no surprise this is no mere revivalist exercise, and there's certainly an elegance in the production and pacing that recalls the Cure-inspired melancholic-euphoria of early 00s acts like Studio and Cut Copy, alongside Suzanne Kraft of course. At some point the fascination with 90s guitar rock is going to run aground, but whilst the sun still shines on the West Coast and young, sad people remain young and sad, the flame will keep burning.
FFO: MBV, Studio, Bowery Electric, Cut Copy
