Hometown: Austin, Texas.
The lineup: Alan Palomo (vocals, machines).
The background: We've been writing about these lo-fi electro-pop characters for a while now, but we didn't realise they had been ascribed a genre name by the blogerati: chillwave, a tag being applied to those gentlemen (Memory Tapes, Washed Out) – and ladies (Nite Jewel) – who make bleary, blissed-out, slow-motion meta-funk on a budget. These DIY types are usually American but, now that we think about it, we're wondering if they're linked in some way to the "beach-foam pop" of Sweden's Air France or the creamy, dreamy dub-disco of the likes of Studio, that duo, also Swedish, who we covered for New Band of the Day in 2007.
Then again, we weren't thinking that when we raved about Memory Tapes and Washed Out, but what maybe separates the Americans from the Europeans of the chillwave movement is that the US branch's music, the riffs and refrains, are heavily sample-based. So much so, in fact, that it's caused a minor furore in cyber circles. "Do u feel like a metaphorical rug has been pulled out from under u?" asked one concerned blogger. "When u find out that music is 'sample-based', do u 'respect it less'? Or do u say that 'finding a sample to use is an art that few musicians can master?'" They went on to acknowledge the use of samples by rappers, but added that "it makes me sad to know that 'indie musicians' aren't 'creative enough' to come up with their own melodies". Finally, they wondered whether or not there ought to be "some sort of indie music standards committee that limits the extent to which samples can be used in 'our scene'", even going so far as to melodramatically recommend that CDs and MP3s should come with a warning as to the extent to which a song is sample-based – "kinda like how products must list nutritional information/cigarettes must tell u that they will kill u?"
Wow. Heavy stuff. But nice to know the music is being taken seriously, especially that of Neon Indian, a 21-year-old sometime film student called Alan Palomo, who has been making Italo disco as Vega for a while and whose hazy, lackadaisical, crackly fizzy-cool pop has made him an online favourite. What he does is no more or less sample-based than that of his peers, we now feel duty-bound to inform you. We know this because we love Todd Rundgren – as do many of today's electronic musicians – and we spotted at least two Todd samples among the eight tracks on Neon Indian's MySpace. There's a blip/byte, a computer scintilla, of Todd's How About a Little Fanfare? at the start of Local Joke. But Deadbeat Summer is afforded its entire melody and perky pop shuffle by Rundgren's Izzat Love? Both cuts are from his 1974 double album, Todd, if you want to track down the originals, and you should.
Pertinently, Rundgren – America's totemic studio solipsist, the US answer to Brian Eno – is currently attempting to perform live his 1973 LP A Wizard, A True Star in the States. Described at the time as "rock's first stream-of-consciousness album", it comprises 19 tracks, including one four-song soul medley; almost an hour's worth of songbursts and strange FX. Well, that pretty much sums up Neon Indian's debut EP, Psychic Chasms, too. Full of reverb-drenched and distorted micro-melodies, it's been hailed as "a gauzy combination of Buggles-style 1980s pop, video-game soundtracks, and cheeseball elevator music". But it just sounds like Todd-tastic Looney Tunes to us: Terminally Chill is like having a soda siphon squirted in your ears, all squiggly synths, sci-fi guitar, 21st-century Beach Boys-style oohs and aahs and a wan melody with a sense of longing. "It's a series of snapshots of pivotal moments in relationships that went completely awry," says Palomo of Psychic Chasms. "Nothing makes better artistic fodder than relationship history for me." But it's his relationship with pop history – and how he intends to use that to forge a pop future – that is most interesting.
The buzz: "Sounds like my Nintendo had sex with a theremin and then got run through the washing machine. It's Passion Pit for the Gorilla v Bear crowd."
The truth: He samples where, say, Todd found the sounds himself – but this is still good chillwave stuff.
Most likely to: Demonstrate his wizardry.
Least likely to: Be a true star.
What to buy: Debut EP Psychic Chasms is released in the US on Lefse Records on 13 October, and in the UK in the spring, label TBC.
File next to: Ariel Pink, Washed Out, Memory Tapes, Todd Rundgren.
Links: myspace.com/neonindian
Tomorrow's new band: Thee Vicars.