MUSIC REVIEW: NEON INDIAN - 'ERA EXTRANA'

Review: A Chillwave Album of Quiet Ecstasy Which Conjures Old-School Memories

By: Jesse Livingston

September 22, 2011

(Mom + Pop) Neon Indian might be classed as “neopsychedelectronica.” That would be an appropriately Byzantine word for the adventurous and complex sounds that make up Era Extraña, a rich and pulse-pounding album that's technically only their second full-length release (2010's Psychic Chasms was re-released as Mind Ctrl: Psychic Chasms Possessed with bonus remix tracks that nearly doubled its length). The band is basically Texas native Alan Palomo writing and singing the songs and backed up on stage by Jason Faries (drums), Leanne Macomber (keyboard, vocals), and Lars Larsen (live visuals).

The phrase “era extraña” could be translated as either “strange age” or “he/she/it was strange.” You have to appreciate a band that seeks out and celebrates the weirdness of life; their music is the perfect antidote to those days when you're feeling like everything's a little too grey and a little too similar.

Sonically, Era Extraña could be compared with the excellent debut Within and Without from Washed Out; it belongs to the same synth-laden, reverb-soaked ethereal miasma that has become known as “chillwave.” However, where Within and Without was delicate and introspective, Era Extraña is far more raucous and upbeat. Both approaches take you somewhere luminous and dreamy, but they do it by different routes. It just goes to show that chillwave, like most genre labels, is probably too limited a term to actually describe a style of music effectively.

Another label that has been floating around lately is “chiptunes,” which refers to musicians who use the sound bank of a Nintendo Gameboy or similar machine to compose songs. The results are surprisingly beautiful, as you can hear on the 8bitcollective website. Try listening to some of the covers that people have recorded, and marvel at how a song you thought you knew can be reborn, i.e. The Smiths' “A Rush and a Push and the Land is Ours” or Lady Gaga's “Paparazzi.” There's a strong element of the chiptunes' ethos on Era Extraña; among the echoing walls of noise, outdated game systems seem to warble and croon from their dusty shelves and scrapheaps. Those of us who grew up playing video games during the '80s and '90s won't be surprised at how emotionally resonant this effect can be. There's an inherent sadness to gaming: you're exploring a fabulous imaginative world, but you're often doing it alone, cut off from other human beings with only their disembodied voices to suggest that others are sharing your experiences. You're seeing wonders, but there's always the looming feeling that you're wasting the hours of your life on false adventures.

This wild and desolate isolation is at the heart of “Arcade Blues,” the final track on the album. The beat starts with what sounds like rhythmic synth-shouts from some old combat game like Street Fighter; then Palomo intones, “No more consolations from the TV screen / for the things unseen / Pixeled consolations, don't know what they bring / but it's not empathy.” Right on, man. “Trade for palpitations, your ideas fade / they begin to stray / But you can always make it up along the way / from what you meant to say.” That's an ineffably sad statement. Like any addiction, gaming can be a rush that sets your nerves alight, but too much of it runs you down into a stupid mess, stumbling around unable to process human interaction. It's a ridiculously self-indulgent problem to have, but so is drug addiction; writing songs about the fractured glory of your drug habit is old news, but how many people have written a song about the fractured glory of their video game habit? “Take me from these arcade blues / I don't know what to do, don't know what to do / Tape these hands and let me lose / Something else to do, find something else to do.” In case you missed it, that's brilliant pop-song poetry right there, as is “Pointless excitation from the cluttered sounds / where the voices drown” and “Dead electric daydreams passing through the ground / here and never found.”

We really do live in a strange age. As Paul Simon put it, “These are the days of miracle and wonder / and don't cry, baby, don't cry.” No matter how amazing the world around us becomes, hasn't it always been amazing? And has that ever stopped us from feeling forlorn, bored, or hateful? Neon Indian's music reminds us -- if only while we're listening -- that as we grind through another day, there's a curious energy humming through us and our surroundings which, if we pay attention, can distract our minds into a higher state of awareness and joy. That's not an exaggeration. Era Extraña can bring joy into your mind if you let it. Whichever genre it may belong to, it's lovely and ecstatic music that deserves to be heard.

Standout Tracks: “Future Sick,” “Arcade Blues,” “Era Extraña,” “Halogen (I Could Be a Shadow)”

For Fans Of: Destroyer, Washed Out