| CD REVIEW Neon Indian |
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Band : Neon Indian Oh my...I wish my editor-in-chief checked the veracity of how some bands he downloads the music of are categorized by the labels! I understand he cannot listen to everything, but when dealing with distributors known to have a broad stylistic touch in music, he might at least give the material a quick listen during the download, before throwing an album on my plate which is completely out-of-place for this website! You see, although Neon Indian doés use an occasional guitar (in 3 or 4 of this album's 12 songs) the band is known for having been the catalyst of forming a new genre in electronic music which is now known under the names Hypnagogic Pop, Glo-Fi, and ChillWave. The band is the brainchild of Monterrey, Mexico born Alan Palomo, whom moved with his parents to America's Denton (a small town NW of Dallas, TX) at the age of 5. Going through his teenager years at high school, he'd already been writing music and performing in his projects Ghosthustler and VEGA (with the latter he even released an album). At a certain moment Palomo wrote the song “Should Have Taken Acid With You” as an excuse to an ex-girlfriend for a missed acid date. Her positive reaction to the song pushed Palomo to continue making songs as Neon Indian, a name the girlfriend conceived. Neon Indian released its debut album Psychic Charms through Lefse Records in October 2009, the release immediately generating positive response from Pitchfork Media, whom not only gave the album “Best New Music” designation, but also listed two tracks in their “The Top 100 Tracks Of 2009”-list. The Hype Machine and Spin Magazine did likewize zany things. The album (with a bonus new track and several remixes of the album's original songs) was re-issued in the UK through Palomo's own label Static Tongues in September 2010. Live promotion was done with Palomo in the role of lead singer being joined on stage by the quartet of Lars Larsen (visuals), guitarist/ backing singer Ronald Gierhart (whom left in late 2010 to finish college and begin the solo project Ronnie Heart), keyboardist/ backing singer Leanne Macomber, and drummer Jason Fairies. The band was subsequently invited to several prestigious festivals (for summary list, see the band's page on Wikipedia), toured with Phoenix, Prefuse 73, Miniature Tigers, massive Attack, Chromeo, Sleigh Bells, Real Estate, and Wild Nothing...and did its nationwide US television debut (playing a medley of two of their debut album's songs) in February 2010 on NBC's Late Night With Jimmy Fallon show. To concentrate on writing and recording the new album, Palomo secluded himself in an efficiency apartment in Helsinki (Finland) during the short solstice days of the late 2010 Winter time. The results where then mixed by Dave Fridmann (you know him from working with MGMT and The Flaming Lips) and given additional production with Palomo at his Tarbox Studios. Work on the album was temporarily put on hold for a collaboration stint with The Flaming Lips, with the 4-track The Flaming Lips 2011: The Flaming Lips With Neon Indian EP (which is still to be released) as a result. Era Estraña was simultaneously released through Mom + Pop Music in the States, Transgressive Records in the UK and Europe, Columbia Music/ Big Nothing I Japan, and through Pop Frenzy/ Inertia in Australia. The album contains 12 tracks, described in the bio we got along with our promo download copy of the album as , “The sample-happy stylings of his previous efforts have been traded in for acid-stained Commodore 64 jams (see “Polish Girl”, “Future Sick”) and bit-pulped guitar sludge ballads (see “Hex Girlfriend”, “The Blindside Kiss”). All throughout, the undulating moods of the record are guided by a haunted 3-part instrumental titled “Heart: Attack”, “Heart: Decay”, and “Heart: Release”. “ Well, only the one song with some decent samples on it, and that's the so-called instrumental “Heart: Decay”. There's indeed Shoegazer-like guitar riffing in “The Blindside Kiss” and “Hex Girlfriend”, and a sharper though calmer guitar riff runs through “Fallout”. I dó believe there's some short and sharp guitar bits done during the album's title song, and I'm sure there's again some darker guitar riffs in “Sons Irrupt”. But do those small guitar contributions justify this album being reviewed on this website? I think not, but... ...but of course not all of us are as narrow-minded as we're “supposed” to be. Personally, I find Palomo's mangling of electronic sounds, with a nice keyboard line at the basis and additional glitch noises and so-called un-melodic additions quite worthy of my time spent on listening to the album. In fact, given a couple more sessions, and I would probably grow só entangled with the music that I would proclaim it to be an essential buy and add it to my year-lists. I mean, I'm a music lover first! Find music (and videos) by this band on their own webspace (http://) neonindian.com, or their pages at SoundCloud, ReverbNation, or MySpace (again, and I know I repeat myself, I don't know for sure what's on there, as I cannot open the recently upgraded site from the network pc I employ to roam the Internet.). 90/100 Tony. |