Neon Indian: Everyone's Loving if They Don't Already and They Should Because It's Got That Kind of Album Quality and It's Got Electric Noise Album

Chances are you've heard a lot of bands like NEON INDIAN's new PYSCHIC CHASMS recently (somewhere in between Ratatat and Animal Collective's Sung Tongs). As Pitchfork put in their pleased review,"Like a low-rent Daft Punk, Palomo takes what 1990s rock fans probably would've considered cheesy-- LinnDrum and Oberheim rhythms, Chromeo-plated electro-funk Korg riffs, processed party-vocal samples-- and not only makes them part of a distinct artistic vision, but also keeps them fun." So, it's hipster album. Yet, the presentation is unpretentious. I think the worst thing to do in this age of music, when there is truly a truckload of talent out there, to dismiss something that's cool or popular, just because it is so. I bring it up because when listening to the album, it's hard to not to imagine it as that album.

"Deadbeat Summer" opens the album like the credits of a teenage John Cusack film (where you see him with big glasses on, drinking at a high school party) and is so charmingly low-fi as it repeats "Deadbeat summer / It's just a deadbeat summer" that it's hard to find anything to dislike. It really feels like summer. "Mind, drips" opens with a rip of electronic noise and beats on like a child of the Terminator Soundtrack and an 8 bit game; "Pyschic Chasms" has those echoey drum-kit beats; "Local Joke" opens with a constellation of noise. It reminds me of fireworks.

The straightforward, if not dismissive, review is that Pyschic Chasms is a great album, with memories of the 80's. You'd have to be deaf not to hear and feel it. But, I do feel this is more than a party album, more than something you put on in the background. It's full of feel-goodedness, a lightning bolt into a world of malaise-filled, cynical rock. In the grandaddy's of electronic, nostalgic noise, I feel sometimes heavy with apocalyptic Radiohead and the blues. It's welcome to hear Neon Indian's break from the world, from the politics, and to just eat a hot-dog in celebration of summer and watch Real Genius.

Neon Indian - 6669

Neon Indian - Deadbeat Summer

Pyschic Chasms is out now on Lefse records.

BUY - emusic : insound

Just Live Videos, No Target

Does anyone else feel weird about Pearl Jam having a Target commercial? Exclusive content at Target? Weirder that the ad ran before The Antlers video on Pitchfork: TV. So I stopped it, and listened to this NPR gem instead. Far better than the studio cut, I think, "Two" is sweeter than the rest of darkness of "Hospice" (listen to "Kettering" below). Plus, their crystalline, opening guitar comes out nice and pretty in this video. Buy "Hospice," and think about your death.

The Antlers - Kettering

1 From Austin, 1 From Brooklyn, Neon Indian Research

A timeline, as best as I can construct it, like some sort of movie P.I.:

4.2.2009 - Two acid washed tracks appears anonymously to Gorilla Vs Bear. Gorilla VS. Bear Posts. They are good.
4.16.2009 - GVB posts another song. Reports their EP coming soon. They're from Brooklyn and Austin. Not sure which is which. Details coming.
8.14.2009 - Pitchfork posts Rising Star review. Gives description including adjectives "gauzy" and "glossy."
9.16.2009 - "thefader" in Dallas posts a mini concert-cover on youtube. Neon Indian is featured. See above.

So that's where we're at now. Their new EP, Pyschic Chasms, is out Tuesday, Sept. 28th. Sounds like we should all buy it (check out their song below via Gorilla VS. Bear).

Neon Indian - 6669

3 Tracks: Dodos - Visiter

Albums are as much a construction as a whole, the way the parts fit together, as they are about their individual songs. The way Southern Point pauses, breathes, and flows into Two Weeks on Veckatimest, or the way Have a Cigar quiets into Wish You Were Here with that gentle pause and the crackle of the TV radio.
Those albums build like a film - rising and lowering to perfectly find the mood that you want. So what I want to do in this column thing, which I will try to do every Wednesday, is highlight the way good albums are produced (and give you the music, for real).

The way good songs flow into each other, to give you brilliant (the way light is brilliant) stories.

To start with some strong and real: Dodos first album, Visiter.



Red and Purple-->Eyelids-->Fools

It opens the way a camera flashes with a huge burst of light and a sudden strum of the guitar. The Dodos sound is not about convention. The rough, crayony album art speaks to that. Immediately you are introduced to sonic guitar, a literal fly by of 12- string and piano pulsing, and the horse-clap of the drums. It's that rough feeling that starts the album, the way a street performer sings and his drummer hits overturned plastic buckets.

"Come and join us in the trenches
Red and purple by our side"



Is it a revolution or a love album? By the end, you know it's an anthem. The pace quickens, and Long's clevver lyrics transition into the succinct "Eyelids." His hope is that you will meet him when arrives he says, as he finishes, and just as you hope: the sticks come in.

"Fools" moves in a gallop, and the first thing you want to do is slap your thigh in tempo. The guitar comes cascading down, the sticks clack together, until finally Long relaxes with:

"I've been, I've been silent"

It's an exciting, stopless debut from a band just getting started. When songs come together, especially without breaks, you feel a sense of pace building, and to let that expel is criminal. The Dodos take advantage of your mood in Visiter: a sense of gathering; of following the ones you love and of revolution. Each song folds into the next one nicely, and there is an optimism to it that lacks in a lot of already great rock albums.

The Dodos - Red and Purple

The Dodos - Eyelids

The Dodos - Fools