The Sauced Bulletin

Of all the artists saddled with the “chillwave” moniker in the past few years, Neon Indian always struck me as the one most dedicated to sounding like the 1980s.  Lo-fi production, warm synths, electro drums; the feeling that you were hearing something recorded in a bedroom, watching the dust particles float through the sunlight, was always present.  You know that I’m talking about.  But where Alan Palomo’s first record as Neon Indian, Psychic Chasms, felt like an ultra-nostalgic love letter to the decade of day-glo tracksuits and Atari, his sophomore effort feels like the full realization of that idea as an actual, honest-to-God STYLE.  Ladies and gentlemen, Neon Indian has legitimized chillwave.

Era Extrana comes as the final release this year from the chillwave Holy Triumvirate (Toro Y Moi and Washed Out already both put out solid records in 2011) and may well be the best of the lot.  It’s interesting that all three of these guys decided to explore their respective sounds in different directions.  Toro Y Moi got funkier, morphing into a kind of dance-y bass driven genre of his own.  Washed out expanded his sound outward, breaking from the confines of his bedroom to include real instruments and a wide open feel.  Neon Indian, conversely, collapsed inward.  His music has become denser, more massive, and seems to pull toward its glowing, chaotic center any outlying style that drifts too close.  Alan Palomo has gone super nova.

The record just feels BIGGER than Psychic Chasms and I think a significant reason for that is the inclusion of three “Heart” themed interludes, the first of which blasts the album into widescreen.  It feels like a grainy, VHS version of the scene in Star Wars where they jump to lightspeed for the first time.  From that point on Era Extrana never lets up, delivering moment after moment of fuzz-drenched synth bliss, most of which you can even dance to!  Lead track “Polish Girl” demonstrates Alan Palomo’s knack for combining catchy hooks with bonkers production flourishes (listen close and every so often you’ll hear the coin sound from Super Mario).  Bleeps and bloops and lasers and video game noises abound in every song, sometimes threatening to overwhelm the melodies.  It’s a credit to Palomo’s songwriting ability that they don’t.

“Hex Girlfriend” is a case in point.  There is SO MUCH going on in this song it takes a few minutes to get acclimated, but if your brain doesn’t melt and you maintain the presence of mind to sift through the cloudy synth warzone, a great track reveals itself.  Catchy as fuck and infused with a backbone of rawk guitars not usually present on a Neon Indian song, “Hex” might be the best thing here.  I say might be because of the second to last proper song on the record, “Future Sick.”  Opening with an inviting, warm synth line, it’s the closest song here to something from Psychic Chasms and stands out for that reason.  Like that record’s “Should Have Taken Acid With You,” “Future Sick” is so pleasant and so well constructed and just so damn FUN that you wish it could continue indefinitely.  Just neon lights, analog tape hiss, and fuzzy laser chords from here to infinity.

Remember when I said St. Vincent’s new record might be the album of the year?  Like way, way back two weeks ago?  Well that’s still true, but Neon Indian may have just one upped her.  I’ve listened to little else since buying Era Extrana (yes, I still buy records what a weirdo and YES I know the word “Extrana” has a little accent thingy over the n but I don’t know how to type that here) and that is something I rarely do.  But I just kept feeling like I wanted to return to this album, to live in it for a while, to hang out in Alan Palomo’s crazy 80s retro-futuristic world.  It’s a lot brighter in there than it is out here and there’s a lot more dancing.  Just watch their Jimmy Fallon performance of “Polish Girl” if you don’t believe me.