Era Extraña by Neon Indian

Recorded between the winter of 2010 and 2011, Era Extraña is a pretty decent record by Neon Indian and is released on September 7, 2011. It contains influences and elements of psychedelic pop, new wave, and indietronica. Again, this is another album that I came in with no prior knowledge of knowing. But for my first time listening to this artist I was impressed with the composition. I listened to the first introduction track of the album which is called “Heart: Attack”, and thought it was one of the best introductions to an album ever. It was short, built anticipation, and ultimately sounded like a video game. But I realized that that song was not the only instrumental interlude on the album. There was “Heart: Decay” and “Heart: Release”. Not only that but the lyrics after these songs have a specific meaning to them. After “Heart: Decay” the lyrics talk about post break up, and after “Heart: Release” the album ends with relief, specifically after the post break up. But the album has a unique production process. It was recorded in Finland, and the album primarily has Palomo, one of the band members, using the Voyetra-8, which is an eight-voice polyphonic analog synthesizer. He also used a Commodore 64, which is an 8-bit home computer. Palomo was also very inspired by his live performances in the songwriting of the album. It was an influence that helped him create more sound-scape driven songs. On the album he had more control over the effects and instruments that he was using, instead of having one instrument that was looping throughout the whole song. On his other projects he relied on presets. So, the sound of the album becomes unsteady with strange musical arrangements and stray sounds of rocket-ship noises, phone conversations, laser sounds, and samples of video games; but the music comes together. There are retro video game samples that are used as musical experiments that sound like M83. The whole album has similarities to other songs that are out there. For instance, “Polish Girl” is similar to “Reunion” by Canadian band Stars, which depicts someone yearning for young love. The pulse in the song sounds like a coin sound effect in the Mario series, and the whole song sounds like disco through an old computer. “The Blindside Kiss” has elements of rock music and talks about the pain side of breaking up. The vocals themselves sound really frustrated. “Hex Girlfriend” addresses an ex-girlfriend. “Halogen (I Could Be a Shadow)” and “Fallout” contain a dramatic keyboard riff. “Era Extraña” talks about a post break up sign of hope. Dramatic drums are present in this track. “Halogen (I Could Be a Shadow)” is about developing peace with comforting percussion, inviting synths, and unique background vocals. “Future Sick” tries to give a whole feeling of growing older in a world growing fast as you are. “Suns Irrupt” has hypnotic and firework fizzling synths with a unique synth background. The repetitiveness in this song can actually be compared to LCD Soundsystem and is my favorite track in terms of production. This album is way more focused though and has a clear meaning, based on its theme of what to do after a break up. But even though we as listeners know what Neon Indian is talking about, the lyrics don’t have any depth to them; it’s all surface level. As a listener, it takes me on a ride through different synthesizer soundscapes, but besides “Fallout” I don’t hear a clear distinction between all of these songs. The album though I can listen on repeat and not get tired of it.