Neon Indian
Alone And In The Dark With Machines, Thinking Of Warm Weather
Dec 4, 2009
Words by Sean Moeller
Illustration by Johnnie Cluney
Sound engineering by Matt Oliver
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Deadbeat Summer
original version appears on Psychic Chasms
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Local Joke
original version appears on Psychic Chasms
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Ephemeral Artery
original version appears on Psychic Chasms
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Should Have Taken Acid With…
original version appears on Psychic Chasms
Alan Palomo might hate the indoors. He may be a jogging nut. He may be a hobbyist in the field of nature photography and he may absolutely insist that everything and everyone looks strikingly better in the natural light of the sun. He may be one of those guys who sits for too long on a couch or in a chair and just get antsy to get out of there, to do something, but even the thought of suggesting that Palomo, the musician behind the Neon Indian project, has an adverse relationship with being cooped up in one place, in front of many gizmos and a computer screen seems unbelievably absurd. We can't even fake, or imagine faking this young man's committed love affair with his room, his machines and his various musical capers, all of which take him into electric and expressive realms of craziness, covered in a gorgeous lo-fi buzz and echoing reverberation. Palomo fucking loves being inside, not just for the manufactured glow of all the lights that he might find in any place he's holing up in, but because that's where all his books are, that's where all his toys are and that's where he can stake out a solitary existence needed to tinker his days and nights away, making the kind of music that he put on this year's washy and utterly fantastic electronic piece of art, "Psychic Chasms." Neon Indian exists in a place in this world that shudders at the thought of ever needing to be away from the implements that make this music possible - the synthesizers, the computers, the Moogs, the kooky gadgets that only gear nerds can real off year, along with make, model and serial numbers without having to consult a search engine. The wiry and bloopy, glitching and streaking noodlings and flourishes are patterned toward the dark and trance-like nights of the vampires and werewolves - smoking weed until all is forgotten and memorable and craftily forging on into the wee morning hours when all of the chemicals and stimulants are wearing off. The vapors of an active night stretch into the next day, but they are replaced by an awareness of those windows built into the walls that are hardly capable of or even trying to keep that blasted daylight out of the room - the curtains shine with the lost effort of trying to restrain the pillaging day. Neon Indian songs and Palomo would prefer to stay hidden by the shroud of darkness and pot smoke, but then again, they fool you with airy instances, pleasantly hinting that if the right kind of afternoon were to present itself - something along the lines of a summer day with a stiff northerly breeze that could send a shiver through the heat and shake up our numbed out eyeballs, rattle our complacent, burnt out minds - they'd accept. They'd keep accepting and accepting until they couldn't help but need to retreat back into the domicile of shadows and machines, where the experiments could once again take precedence and the songs of the hungover dreams and freakouts of Wayne Coyne and Doogie Howser could once again be written without shit getting in the way.
Neon Indian Official Site
Lefse Records
