New Look

Recorded over the past three years, across the creative trinity of Berlin, Brooklyn and the sleepy hollow town of Hamilton, near Niagara Falls in Ontario, Canada, New Look’s self-titled debut album is a feverishly anticipated affair. The Canadian future pop duo and real life couple, Sarah Ruba and Adam Pavao have an undeniable creative synergy, combining the stunning, synth-playing chanteuse and former model, 25-year-old Ruba (previously shot by the likes of cult fashion provocateur Bruce Weber) and multi-instrumentalist, 31-year-old producer Pavao. There is a confidence and wit to their songwriting, coupled with cosmic tweaks and soft synths underpinning their future pop aesthetic. It’s controlled yet wistful pop perfectionism. Opening with “Nap on the Bow”, New Look slowly caress an introductory world of warm 80s analogue pads and distanced echoes, the track building up around Ruba’s ethereal dreams, bubbling basslines breaking through tropical drums and effervescent synths. Striding along with “Numbers” and “A Light”, New Look showcase their talent for creating a multi-synth-orchestra vibe, two self-referential tracks that channel the duo’s creative energy via last year’s move from New York to Berlin and Berlin to Toronto, respectively. The band’s obsession with analogue equipment rises through the MIDI gaps, with the gear’s white noise and tape hiss being musically manipulated around gorgeous, crystal clear vocals. New Look’s anthemic single “The Ballad” is the record’s futuristic pop centrepiece, juxtaposed by the stripped-back, harder hitting electro of “Teen Need” where Ruba’s vocals are twisted with a late night, 5am throwback party vibe, coincidentally written earlier this year with the band’s triumphant return to New York City. With a pitched down Sarah Ruba contributing androgynous guest vocals on “You & I”, the album’s morning-after-the-night-before turnaround, the latter half of the album returns to New Look’s soaring, amorous electronic pop roots. “M