Neon Indian

Neon Indian is an American electronic music band from Denton, Texas. The music is composed by Mexican-born Alan Palomo (born July 24, 1988), who is also known for his work with the band Ghosthustler, and as the solo artist VEGA. The band's debut studio album, Psychic Chasms, was released in October 2009 to favorable reviews. Rolling Stone named Neon Indian one of the best new bands of 2010. Their second studio album, Era Extraña, was released in September 2011, followed by VEGA INTL. Night School in October 2015.

History

Beginnings

Palomo was born in Monterrey, Mexico, and later moved to San Antonio, Texas at the age of 5, relocating to Denton, Texas for college at the University of North Texas. He had already been writing and performing music before the inception of Neon Indian, in his projects Ghosthustler and VEGA, through much of his high school years. Shortly before the release of Psychic Chasms, Palomo said he planned on releasing another album as VEGA, although this did not happen. In an interview, Palomo cites his father as a musical influence, "just because that's how he makes his living—he had a brief stint in the late 70s and early 80s as a Mexican pop star." Palomo also said that he sampled some of his father's material in his work with Neon Indian.

Psychic Chasms

Psychic Chasms is the debut studio album by American electronic music band Neon Indian, released on October 13, 2009 by Lefse Records. Pitchfork Media placed the album at number 14 on its list of Top 50 Albums of 2009, while Rhapsody ranked it at number 17 n on its list of 25 Best Albums of 2009.

A special edition of the album was released digitally on August 31, 2010 and physically on September 28 by Fader Label, including a set of nine bonus remixes titled Mind Ctrl: Psychic Chasms Possessed. In the United Kingdom, the special edition was released on September 28, 2010 by Static Tongues and included the track "Sleep Paralysist", while omitting two remixes.

Track listing

All songs written and composed by Alan Palomo. 

Neon

Neon is a chemical element with symbol Ne and atomic number 10. It is in group 18 (noble gases) of the periodic table. Neon is a colorless, odorless, inert monatomic gas under standard conditions, with about two-thirds the density of air. It was discovered (along with krypton and xenon) in 1898 as one of the three residual rare inert elements remaining in dry air, after nitrogen, oxygen, argon and carbon dioxide were removed. Neon was the second of these three rare gases to be discovered, and was immediately recognized as a new element from its bright red emission spectrum. The name neon is derived from the Greek word, νέον, neuter singular form of νέος [neos], meaning new. Neon is chemically inert and forms no uncharged chemical compounds.

During cosmic nucleogenesis of the elements, large amounts of neon are built up from the alpha-capture fusion process in stars. Although neon is a very common element in the universe and solar system (it is fifth in cosmic abundance after hydrogen, helium, oxygen and carbon), it is very rare on Earth. It composes about 18.2 ppm of air by volume (this is about the same as the molecular or mole fraction), and a smaller fraction in Earth's crust. The reason for neon's relative scarcity on Earth and the inner (terrestrial) planets is that neon forms no compounds to fix it to solids and is highly volatile. This led to its escaping from the planetesimals under the warmth of the newly ignited Sun in the early Solar System. Even the atmosphere of Jupiter is somewhat depleted of neon, presumably for this reason. It is also lighter than air, which has further depleted it from Earth's atmosphere.

Indian

Indian or Indians may refer to:

People

South Asia

The Americas

Era Extraña

Era Extraña is the second studio album by American electronic music band Neon Indian. Recorded in the winter of 2010–11 during Palomo's visit to Finland, it was released on September 7, 2011 by Static Tongues and Mom + Pop Music. Containing influences and elements of psychedelic pop, shoegaze, and new wave, the break-up album has the same sound and summer-y feel that was on the band's debut studio album Psychic Chasms, but with a darker and more serious tone. The record was generally well received by critics, with some reviewers calling it more focused, tight and cohesive than Psychic Chasms and some praising the song crafting. However, there were some mixed reviews disliking that the album lost much of the charm that was on Chasms. The album peaked at number 74 on the American Billboard 200, and was the project's first release to appear on the chart.

Production

The album was recorded during the winter of 2010–11 at Kalevankatu 45 in Helsinki, Finland, where frontman Alan Palomo was living for four weeks. Palomo primarily wrote the album using a Voyetra 8, a Korg MS-20 and a modified Commodore 64, and the first weeks of him making the album in Helsinki involved him learning this equipment. Palomo first saw the Voyetra 8 in the music video for New Order's "The Perfect Kiss", saying that he was amazed by the appearance of it: "It's this bizarre, kaleidoscope interface with these knobs, and it's really physical to use, a strange kind of challenge." Palomo's songwriting on Era Extraña was influenced from his live performances more so than his previous projects, saying that he had never expected to perform his songs live before: "It was an influence; not so much something that limited me, but a feeling that lead to longer, more soundscape-driven songs. That was something that was undeniably in my mind: ‘what would I want to be playing every night for eight months?’ And the album evolved from there."