Dive - Sometime

Ok, ok, so how I didn’t have time to work out just how I would write a post a day for 20 days, but the point is I’m trying to ramp em up and give your ears some consistent (aural) pleasure. Today’s band/post is Dive, a new band from the Beach Fossils guitarist Cole Smith, with their song 'Sometime'. Now I know what you’re thinking; how can someone SOOO well known not already be in my musical repertoire? Well, he’s not well known. Apparently. And I didn’t even know who he was till earlier this week so no harm done really, huh? This is a pretty cool dream pop type song, all echoey like the ‘hall’ setting on your thingy ma what, and it’s got this simple guitar lick most of the way through that’s awesome and sort of flicks up at the end as though it’s asking you a question.

‘Sometime’ was released in October, and you can check out its follow up ‘Human’ over on Pitchfork. Not quite sure if there’ll be an album coming out yet, but the label for these two singles was Captured Tracks, who also released Beach Fossils, so you can safely assume it’ll be on that.

P.S. If you can't find the song, hit the play button over the article you silly mare.

George Harrison - All Things Must Pass

Approaching that time of year again- ‘best of’ lists- and as with last year’s attempt- I’m going to shun the idea and pursue something which will hopefully be far more interesting: 20 posts in 20 days. There’s no such thing as a best album. As a very good article for The Guardian blog re-iterated (although it was in fact also accompanied by a top 10 list), our habits are rooted in time and place, and not some surgical, disinterested dissection of merit. In that vein, my posts reflect thoughts and habits at the time, what I'm listening to, and similarly, what I think others might enjoy.

So, George Harrison. What’s there to say? ‘Third’ Beatle, the quiet Beatle, and the one who was often seen as stifled by the juggernauts of Lennon/ McCartney. When The Beatles began to fall apart in 1969, slowly Harrison came out of his shell. His debut solo effort All Things Must Pass is widely regarded as the best of the four’s solo debuts, and a mature, serious, full-on record. Its often gentle song structures and easy on the ear melodies belie the balance and strength that is now often seen as one of Harrison’s core personal strengths. His self-assuredness and quest for self-enrichment came through in this monster LP, and now it is a small part of pop history.

First, its length. A triple-LP of 23 songs, five of which are strung together as a big ‘Apple Jam’ is not exactly a marketer’s idea of a cautious entry into the solo sphere. All Things Must Pass is powerful; Harrison put himself into it, and he wasn’t going to compromise. He never did anything by halves: just watch Martin Scorsese’s documentary Living in the Material World. Second, religion. Harrison’s strong belief in Hindu spirituality, mediation and mantras, developed after The Beatles’ visit to India in 1967, and shaped this album, which is now regarded as one of the 500 greatest of all time (…or at least it is by Rolling Stone magazine.) (Interestingly, many of the extensions of his religious ideas still have resonance today.) See ‘My Sweet Lord’, see ‘Heard Me Lord’, see ‘Awaiting on You All’; arguably three of the most sensational songs of Harrison’s song-writing repertoire, and they all promulgate spiritual philosophies, but also, they are constructed and delivered with a lightness, peace and simplicity only imagined by those who feel truly enlightened and at one. ‘My Sweet Lord’ is a reassuring journey to spiritual well-being. As with his mantra from The Beatles' 'The Inner Light', “the farther one travels, the less one really knows”, it isn’t intimidating, over-the-top, sarcastic or ironic. It is direct and simple. Harrison hopes to exist in the moment, the aspiration of those following a path of meditation and zen. ‘Hear Me Lord’ is a similarly striving ode to self-embetterment.

His religious journey was not so all-consuming as to make All Things Must Pass a purely religious record, however. There are many shades of grey, and on a superficial level, you might be interested to know that Harrison doesn’t make much use of Eastern sitars on this record. Still, at the more familiar end of the scale is Apple Jam stuff/rambling ditty ‘It’s Johnny’s Birthday’. This juxtaposition makes it obvious how multi-faceted and complicated Harrison really was. Lennon went on marches and made bold political jibes; McCartney was a clean-cut pop king, and Harrison sat at the back taking notes, figuring out what it was all about. Did he let go? Well of course. ‘Apple Scruffs’ is one of my favourite pop songs, comprising a harmonica and acoustic sing-a-long, and I love it because it’s so whimsical and poignant at the same time.

All Things Must Pass carries itself with both a pride and an honesty that I don’t think any album today can. Can you talk about spirituality with a straight face? Can you put the words ‘Hare Krishna’ at the end of a song repeatedly and deliver a message that will resonate with the man in the street as well as a swami? Sounds hard, doesn’t it? Sure, our lack of interest in pondering things long and hard has much to do with our cultural shift, and being more closed off to sitting down and thinking, but it is also a great compliment to Harrison that he had the confidence and single-mindedness to straddle pop and spirituality, and he continues to be able to pry into us in such a marvellously subtle way even today. We might notice, but we are generally too impressed with the songwriting. ‘Isn’t It A Pity’ works for 7 minutes to achieve it; ‘Beware of Darkness’ tugs at your heart-strings with plain-as-day life advice. If it makes All Things Must Pass sound like a self-help manual, then it some respects it is. If it makes it sounds like one hell of an awesome record, it is certainly that too...

Lucky Number Music, Friends and the Independent Label Market, London

Hello pop pickers! Sorry it’s been so long since I last posted, but there so is a lot to talk about, so I’ll get right down to business. First post first: Independent Label Market. Now this was a…well…market in Spitalfields, London, put on today to hawk the wares of predominantly small independent record labels who had had stock destroyed at the Sony warehouse during the London rioting in August (did those rioters know they had caused such callous artistic destruction?! I should hope not.) Anyway, the fruits of their violent labour have clearly produced one good outcome.

The twist I so love about this event is that the stalls were manned by label bosses themselves. For my part, this gave me an opportunity to chat with one of my favourite labels, Lucky Number Music, who are behind Friends and Caged Animals (see below).

Now, I believe among all those stalls there, Lucky Number are onto something unique with their artists, and have a really special eye for detail. I discussed this with co-guru leader man, Michael Morley, and he said that within its sound, the label hopes to build a common thread among its artists, an identity if you will, that speaks for the label, or if you want to be more market-speak about it, a ‘brand’. This is evident in everything about them. The artists appear to stand for creativity above pop perfection; product above packaging. If those ideas sounds hoity-toity, consider Darwin Deez, Caged Animals, Friends and Sebastian Tellier; all esoteric, idiosyncratic, different from one another, although this, (and a noticeable zeal for music) is what they all have in common. I mentioned Friends’ September London gig: “Did you meet them afterwards?” Morley said, matter-of-factly. I had. The band were there after the gig, talking to everyone and were genuinely interested in what people had to say. They sold ‘I’m His Girl’ a month or so before its official release (review below), and guess who bought one based on their performance that night and a good chat about London? Two spare copies were brought along today apparently, and sold even before the stall had opened.

Friends are arguably becoming the label’s biggest ever artist. Morley and co-founder Stephen Richards saw them at their sixth ever gig. Pretty incredible. It’s now widely known that Friends have been together only a year. The pair were immediately impressed by the band, and additionally, a rarity in live indie music, Urbani’s uncanny ability to bring girls to the front of the crowd. The band were signed up soon after, and debut ‘Friend Crush’ was released, now a 250-copy Ebay rarity, never to be pressed again if the label is true to its word.

While I don’t think a label can set the world alight, it's interesting to know that in an industry now bombarding us with new artists, information and ‘packaging’, someone is focusing on product and letting music speak for itself. Multi-linguist Sebastien Tellier’s 2008 album Sexuality was a great coup; a well-received record which included ‘Divine’, a song Tellier later sang when he entered 2008's Eurovision song-contest!

Tellier is typical of the independent-minded creatives Lucky Number seems to like. Reflecting now on Friends’ inclusion in the BBC Sound of 2012 poll, a veritable hype machine, Morley had mixed feelings about whether a top-5 finish is important considering it would produce expectation from the rest of the industry for Friends to sell loads of records: a mixed blessing. I didn’t raise the suggestion that a critical lift like that could be a self-fulfilling prophecy in the shops, even for a too-cool indie band like Friends, but I’m sure deep down, the duo would be completely chuffed if that were to happen.

Seventeen Evergreen are their newest project, but it's still early days for their other artists. Friends will have an album out in early 2012, a tentative, tentative, release date of April 23rd, preceded by two shows in London (Lexington- Feb 7^th sold out, XOYO- Feb 8^th) and Caged Animals have Vincent Cacchione’s astro orbit creativity and energy to harness in promoting their debut (check out recent single ‘Teflon Heart’ by the way).

Enough from me. There will be more posts to come.

LIVE REVIEW: Hypnotic Brass Ensemble @ Jazz Cafe, London

Twirling care-free in a field of anonymity like Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, Grapevine draws resolve from all your charming reading. You survive this tautological word racket, and hopefully gleam some new music in return. It’s for you that I tune in, turn on and drop out or whatever it’s called, and do this wacky nonsense after work when the laptop flickers and the world is but a husk of numbers on a computer. Yet, despite this, if a tree falls in woods and no one is there to hear it, it makes a seismic sound...because that tree will soon be on Grapevine, heralded as some brilliant new band and splayed like a drab strumpet for all her glory in the naked stocks of Soundcloud shame.

Could being covered on here really sound anyyy more saucy? Maybe...if there were pictures.

Today’s post is from a Hypnotic Brass Ensemble gig. The Chicago band who played London’s Jazz Café Monday night, but missed the pages of the national press (it soon transpired) are not your ordinary show-stoppers. Fans include Jude Law and Damon Albarn, the Blur liberal world arts genius. The band have tirelessly toured their back yard for 10 years, busking (check out some of their videos on youtube), ducking and diving, making self-released records- working their way towards these sorts of moments: gigs with roomfuls of warm, pre-disposed crowds. Their self-titled album- their first in the UK- was released by distinguished label Honest Jons in 2009 after the band were spotted busking near the record store in Ladbroke Grove. Sooner or later they were on Later…with Jools Holland. This, quite literally, is an urban hip-hop nine piece brass band, EIGHT of whom are brothers (awkward for the ninth member, eh?) and sons of jazz musician Tony Cohran. HBE smack you with something so direct and- as anyone who was there will testify- insanely loud, that you will be jolted to recall that brass is not only something heard in the grounds of Buckingham Palace or at the local arts centre. It has a historic place in music: the street, community life.

The nine are lively, spinning their four trumpets, two trombones, one sousaphone (yeeeaah, that’s this) and baritone in different directions to Gabriel Wallace’s drums. Their unified and determined symphony is great, aesthetically as well as sonically. It’s a powerful, raw image, these nine lads bopping to brass. They punctuate the drive with raps, each taking turns to draw in the uncertain crowd and re-assure them. You can see this is something they’ve honed. Whether due to their roots on Chicago’s south side, personal gigging experience or a wilful effort to integrate rap into their recordings (see this year’s EP Bulletproof Brass, which has vocals), heavy crowd interaction is necessary for things to fully come to life and break down a difficult fourth wall that haunts many a contradictory musician. HBE look different, even if they’re just another band. Cynics won’t know what to think when nine men with tattoos and bristling egos turn up and start pushing their trumpets on everyone and then take off their shirts. What’s English popular culture’s point of reference for this? None. Audience interaction is necessary for the uninitiated to understand what HBE are to them. Lots of cheesy call and response gets the crowd going. Chanting before ‘Touch the Sky’, ‘Kryptonite’ and ‘Party Started’ among other tracks warms them to dancing and trusting this lot of American orchestra men before the raps step aside for brass. It doesn’t take long for these gestures to become reciprocal and soon we're part of the mix. The crowd finally chant the band back down from the Jazz Café’s high restaurant balcony in appreciation. HBE get the crowd down on the floor. Everyone- (even closet killjoys…it’s hard to tell what proportion of the audience are engaging in this sort of act of obedience because they genuinely want to) was down, groovin, before rising to touch the sky. THAT sort of infectious enthusiasm is hard. HBE must have realised that certain audiences want to be led, and once they are, the atmosphere can just build.

HBE’s music is assertive. The Hypnotic in their name, derived from when the group were busking and a subway passenger missed many trains to hear them play, is certainly apt. Each song marches to a defined formula; a deep, jagged groove rather than the soft melodies often heard in jazz. Tycho Cohran- who to me seems like the leader of group for his massive sousaphone - settles into a bass groove that the rest of the band follow. Energy is then brought on by trumpets. On ‘War’, their trademark track that they must have played hundreds if not thousands of times, this formula is clearest. Rumbles blaze from Tycho, and his brothers swirl around him with repetitious horns.

Looking ahead, how will HBE avoid being labelled one-trick ponies? They deliver hip-hop’s rhythm, but songs from the UK debut didn’t allow much room to manoeuvre. Most importantly, the band ultimately have to do what they want to do. The moment Gabriel, Seba, Tarik, Gabriel, Uttama, Jafar, Saiph, Amal and Tycho’s love for their instruments and inquisitiveness dies out, so too will everyone else’s. They’re integral. This is the same with many bands I’ve seen live who come out of leftfield to mainstream tastes, particularly jazz and ‘world’ musicians. The moment the love and soul is lost between the artist and his music, uninitiated music aficionado get all aloof from it. Bulletproof Brass is a good indication of future direction. The rapping works well as an extension to their energy, live and on record, and the samples show an interesting change of style. I hope, personally, that we get something like a brass version of The Roots from HBE: a band that’s reflective, single-minded and soulful, to join a great collection of modern popular hip-hop artists. HBE certainly have the independence to do that, and the road-hardened experience to find their way. As we’re seeing fleetingly on the new EP, and most notably in the calmer ‘Black Boy’, Hypnotic’s awakening might yet be to come.

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble - War by ChoiceCuts

Hypnotic Brass Ensemble bit at Jazz Cafe by MiCloud

Philco Fiction- Take It Personal

We join Philco Fiction at their international germination but over eight years into their career. The Norwegian trio (website) are warming us with ballads, but not ordinary ones. Stomachs do flips and journo brains get a bit sweaty. Take It Personal (stream it here) is a neon gas heater of sound, driving down artificial, impersonal warmth onto your head.

This is a very unusual record. Philco rush from Florence & The Machine esque soaring pop ballad to electro anthem, to orchestra-led avant garde experimentation. Throughout, The Knife’s off-kilter unpredictable bombast runs through the tracks. First there's the confident but dispassionate female vocal like Karin Dreijer Andersson and then there's the unnerving changes of atmosphere between sideways pop splashes (like The Knife's Deep Cuts), dark twists (like Silent Shout) and orchestras (like Tomorrow, In a Year). The confusing undertones of sophomore and potential breakthrough Take it Personal are endless.

Take It Personal won’t so much hit you, as lower you gently into a cauldron of bubbling stew. The introduction, ‘Help!’, uses dark, rumbling bass reminiscent of Fever Ray before breaking into a soaring electro anthem of safer pop chart climbs. Even then, Turid Alida Solberg’s voice belies the song's familiarity, keeping it tethered to a dark undercurrent. Slowly, Philco's air of definiteness comes apart. ‘The Youth’ opens with creepy synths and the soundtrack to a child tiptoeing in fairy-tale haunted woods. Violins, cellos (?) and whirring gadgetry in the bridge show that this record might indeed be one odd mother. Streaks of ‘One For You’ or ‘Rock Classics’ from Deep Cuts break out as ‘The City’ confirms our expectations: Gloomy, uncertain, dark…congratulations- you are into Philco Fiction's mad mad world.

The band navigate genres and styles like a croupier shuffling cards. From ‘Finally’ onwards, they let rip and open up into a plethora of directions that even the most able reviewer would find daunting. 'Finally' opens with XX-like guitars that join broad strokes of gentle piano chords part-way through. Into six minute number ‘Too Nice’, and the slow-burning sound starts to get asphyxiating; warped, almost, as it progresses. The section comes to a head with ‘I Want You’, an edgy track that pulsates with non sequitur lyrics a la that Swedish duo (once again):

"My intentions are no longer good. My intentions aren't acting like they should. I never decide what to eat. I never lose my sleep."

It builds to a gloriously melodic soulful climax, twirling to victory.

Now for the most surprising part. Seconds after the layered, triumphant climax, a delicate folk number eases into ear-shot. Pizzicato violins? Joanna Newsom? Almost. With Turid's soothing, swooning elegance, this particularly stunning juxtaposition of songs finally blows out. Snaking its path, calming you down, 'Too Close' ably steers you out of madness, towards sobriety and into the next section. The diversity on this album, but particularly, these four middle tracks, is amazing. Each one is boldly sonically independent. They stare you down with such confident directness that even on repeated listens you forget what you’ve just heard once the next track's begun. Take It Personal demands it. It demands all your focus. 'Take It Personal' is very apt indeed.

The final three tracks are no less unusual. ‘Horizon’, the most upbeat number on the album preens with sparkle. It's easy to see why lady vocalist led electro acts have had such blog exposure this year: with double-track recording, Turid's voice comes out in a way that I don't think a male vocalist's could.

Take It Personal is one of my favourite records of 2011 so far, and one of the most unclassifiable, deep, stunning albums broadly fitting within the parameters of popular alternative music I’ve ever heard. There isn’t a duffer, and even towards the end when you finally think you've consolidated the swathes of sonic territory there are to contend with, 80s pop inspired ‘Time is a Fly’ comes in and smashes the little picket-fence you think you've built to house it. If someone could tell me from where Philco Fiction draw their inspiration apart from ‘everywhere’ I would be interested to hear it. The way music can be in the self-referential, post-modern internet world is an incredible thing. And it’s not for the first time that I love it. Philco Fiction, I hope, will become one of the world's most popular new alternative bands.

Out Now on Brilliance Records (label here).

Philco Fiction - Finally by Brilliance Records


Philco Fiction - Help! by Brilliance Records

Tennis- 'Tell Her No' (The Zombies cover)

Tell Her No by tennisinc

Ahhh it feels good to be back.

I had an email Q&A exchange with the awesome Lucky Number Music (home of Caged Animals and Friends), which was rudely botched by a website I occasionally do some writing for- but never mind: my musical mojo is still intact. I’m going to endeavour to bring you everything great and spongy that I’ve heard of late, for your great and spongy ears!

The first piece- saying that- is lifted from gorillavsbear.net- a recent post about husband and wife duo Tennis, who we featured earlier this year on the site.

They’ve covered (download here) The Zombies’ 1965 chart hit ‘Tell Her No’. It’s a classic Beatles-cum-Beach Boys-esque song but with a cruel anti-romance twist. The lyrics go: “And if she tempts you with her charms, Tell her no, no, no […] Don’t hurt me now for her love belongs to me.” It could have fitted pretty well on their debut LP Cape Dory if you ask me, due to all the 60s-style throwbacks.

A follow-up to 2011's debut is in the pipeline. Here’re some words:

“We’ve spent the last several months writing and preparing for what we hope will keep us busy all winter. We will be announcing a Forest Family release in the next couple of weeks as well as tour dates to make up for the Vaccines tour cancellations. Also, we are excited to announce the existence of our next album (produced by our new friend Patrick Carney coming out early next year. In the meantime, we made this cover of the Zombies “Tell Her No.” It’s been a long time favorite of ours and is the best use of a lone-clap we’ve ever heard.”

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin- Tape Club

Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin- Tape Club

(2011, Polyvinyl Records)

For when there’s a lull with nothing to post about, I’ve kept this back in reserve. One of my favourite bands of the last 10 years who create music that occasionally hits me like a truck (‘House Fire’, ‘Some Constellation’) or takes a while to sink in (most of Broom), but always succeeds in wriggling inside my brain-box and building a nest for itself: Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin. I wrote about them earlier (see here) and as you may know, they were an "of the moment" band on US-based indie blogs around 2005 when recording Broom, their first album. This was a home-recorded, extremely lo-fi record and had very little to say for itself in the way of production, but stood out promisingly for its tunes. An internet following was born.

Since Polyvinyl picked Broom up and released it, the commercial fortunes of Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin- or SSLYBY for short, arguably waned slightly according to speculation from loyal adherents. Thankfully though, their music and passion didn’t. Two diverse, lively and enjoyable records followed in 2008 and 2010, Pershing and Let it Sway respectively, filled with shamelessly catchy pop tunes. Broom, re-released for Record Store Day in April this year with some new tracks- that first home-recorded record, now sits atop a small number of dreamy indie kids’ post-2000 lists as a cult pop classic. I give mine a listen quite regularly, and often wonder what in those loosely formed arrangements and hushed vocals keeps me coming back. But it does. And regularly.

Their honeyed sound and image isn't for everyone. However, if you’re a fan of good music without pretence; a follower of healthy tunes over fashion, SSLYBY are one of the best bands to draw into your listening arsenal. Cavorting with my ears through train journeys, helping while away 40 minutes in town or sound-tracking an evening with friends before heading out, SSLYBY can be taken anywhere (and will take you anywhere) with their infinite lightness.

I turn to the reason for this post: Tape Club, a 26-song compendium of b-sides that SSLYBY will release in October. How impossible to imagine that a band as lo-fi as SSLYBY would even have b-sides. How much more demo-like could they be, especially the b-sides from Broom?! Well in their seven-year fringe-of-the-public-zeitgeist tenure, and ten years as a band, their production values have wilfully soared and plummeted as much as a kite on the breeze. It makes SSLYBY sound like two different bands, one playing at Will Knauer’s house in a suburb of Springfield, Missouri, and one recording in a high-tech, gee whizz, sound-proofed studio. (In reality, even the uber-polished Pershing was recorded at Knauer’s aunt’s house).

So sound varies wildly. At the end of ‘What We’ll Do’, you can literally hear the tape stop; on ‘Song 1000’, the band just about hold things together while they muck around with (what sound like) kazoos. At the other end of the scale, Let It Sway’s lush mid-range pours out of the speakers on ‘Bended’ and ‘Letter Divine’, a richness and warmth, employed from Pershing onwards, to give singles like ‘Think I Wanna Die’, ‘Glue Girls’, ‘Banned (By The Man)’ and ‘Critical Drain’ their glamour and anthemic charm.

A few songs don’t really fit into either of these two categories and float innocuously between them: ‘Sweet Owl’ is the sort of tune I thought SSLYBY would never record, just because it’s so folksy, and ‘Yellow Missing Signs’ (the first song leaked from Tape Club) adopts an electro edge that makes you wonder what the band were up to when non-rock influences took hold in jamming sessions.

Diamonds in the rough tease themselves out, as is often the case with SSLYBY. Campfire ditty ‘Bigger Than Yr Yard’ could have made it onto Broom to close it with a late-night sing-a-long. Some of the newer, cleaner production stuff also grabs hold of you after a few listens: ‘New Day’ and ‘Coming Through’ are a class act placed by side by side. They’re probably my highlights of the album and shimmer with an innocent, harmonious glow. They're much like the flowering of confidence that seemed to resonate in Pershing: the realisation of the group's creative energy and pop prowess.

It's a great collection. There's no doubting that. I say it as a fan and as an advocate, but also because I think Tape Club shows quite clearly how enjoyable a band can be with a few chords running round their heads spontaneously knocked out on tape. Purveyors of lo-fi fun, nonsense and slivers of brilliance, SSLYBY are pop stalwarts.

Indie-blog praise hasn’t quite lived up to expectation: the objective 'standard' that artists are supposedly aiming for, but that is too crude. Even if ubiquity doesn't come calling, it doesn't need to, for many of us are just happy listening to SSLYBY….and occasionally writing about them.

Tape Club is in stores on 18^th October and comes in all sorts of formats (see here). The band are currently touring the States, as always. Fingers crossed for European dates. See above to stream the album.

death masks stares

Folk-rock with a slightly baroque feel is what my friend Jonny deftly described as ‘In the woods’ music. Fleet Foxes, Midlake, Woods, Dry The River, all that sort of stuff……basically any band that would play at End of the Road or Green Man festival if you want to be sweeping.

It feels like I haven’t heard something like this in ages. Merseysider Thom Tyrer’s project sounds like a track from Woods’ At Echo Lake from 2010, tumbling with carefree jangling guitars and the weary reflections of autumn.

‘Stares’ is part of a four track cassette tape & free digital EP called I Know A Short Cut that is available on Tyrer’s bandcamp. An LP will be released later this year.

Death Masks- Stares

Neon Indian- Era Extraña

Neon Indian- Era Extraña

(2011, Static Tongues/ Mom+Pop)

Neon Indian: pioneer of 2009/10 phenomenon ‘chillwave’; talented young 23 year old from Texas; man who sellotaped together some random electronic flotsam and jetsam in 2009 and stood back to reveal a completed work called Psychic Chasms that stunned and excited listening hoards in equal measure. Neon Indian’s creator Alan Palomo has been treated kindly by the internet. His music is innovative, bright and colourful; he is also clearly serious about his machines and the way they are used so prominently and consistently in his work, which is I think part of his wide appeal.

For an album title, Era Extrana sounds like it was rejected as a wacky Coldplay concept name. Mixed by the guy who recorded Tame Impala’s Innerspeaker and both MGMT records, it picks up where Psychic Chasms left off. Fizzling with synthetic spark, beats and video game samples, it delves back in to the fun but delicate papier-mâché universe that Psychic Chasms created for itself to indulge in spaceship dreams and psychedelic story-telling.

Best start with the equivalent of the debut’s hit ‘Deadbeat Summer’ and look at ‘Polish Girl’: overall an incredible poppy stunner to rival Deadbeat’s breezy underplayed emotion and playful energy. There’s no doubt this will be a favourite for Neon Indian sets. The video is also representative of what it seems Palomo wanted to achieve: that eccentric Flaming Lips-esque abstraction. A world that wilfully will not be placed in space or time. Posing like the opening video for a Daft Punk gig, a futuristic astronaut-cum-welder DJ is teased away from his twiddly noise boxes by a young woman and goes on a journey to re-connect with her using what seems to be VHS, or Betamax, or some quasi-vintage equipment cobbled together in the year 2050 because all technology is sort of wiped out but we’ve invented this weird hybrid breed. It’s kitsch and textured. Computers rule in Palomo’s world, even in his videos.

The album is divided into three parts: ‘Attack’, ‘Decay’ and ‘Release’ but some bits struggle to find their voice. ‘Blindside Kiss’ (from ‘Attack’, it seems) tries this kind of detached, drug-infused drudgery that just seems a little aloof for my taste and sort of floats off into space. ‘Future Sick’ (mmm, lovely name) and ‘Suns Irrupt’ follow it into the dark-matter abyss. Feedback and hiss on this album threaten to stop Palomo in mid-song at every turn, even though many of them are strong, and drag him into the vacant dreaminess of his artistic universe. His feel for a good melody is in attendance on ‘Hex Girlfriend’ with its catchy backing vocal and ‘Heart: Decay’ is a classic 1980s Sci-Fi throwback, steeped in muffled effects. Indian acquired his chillwave credentials from the dimension of nostalgia that underlines his oddly apathetic party music, and that is clearly not lost. ‘Halogen (I Could Be A Shadow)’s indie pop structure and danceable tendencies are wrapped by echoic effects added to the vocal and the gentle thrum of high-end hiss.

The detachment of the latter half of the album is arguably annoying. It’s the result of Neon Indian’s insistence on delivering woozy futurism very persistently and deliberately. But you can’t begrudge him for that. The electronic, future….mash concept is clearly strong and sounds like Lucky Charms marshmallows might do if they scrapped cereal and did music instead. Sometimes that can be a little too riddled with synthesisers but the good bits make it worth it, (much like Lucky Charms themselves!) Luck Charms and Neon Indian are surely a marketing tie-in made in heaven when you think about it.

What Palomo does for his third album will really be interesting (not to diminish the obviously considerable effort he must have put in to making this one.) I guess when you’ve made an album as mad as this, what do you do next?!

The album is out now so you can buy it, or you can wait till 10th October for one of these deluxe synthesiser bundles that Rough Trade are doing. Up to you really, innit?

a bit of a New Look fiend at present but...

...summary of recent New Look news:

1. New Look will be touring the UK and Europe from October onwards, including two nights in London. See their website for details.

2. On 7th October during the day they will be playing a special gig at Rough Trade East, London for those who purchased the album. Entry by wristband only: click here for details

3. The self-titled album will be released on 26th September. Click here to check out three of the tracks (Nap on the Bow, You & I and Drive You Home).

4. New Look got mainstream British attention by being The Guardian's New Band of the Day for 14th September. In it, the upcoming record was hailed as "one of the albums of the year."

Wow, all this New Look news in only three days! The internet works in mysterious ways.