Neon Indian: VEGA INTL. Night School [Album Review]

Neon Indian
VEGA INTL. Night School
Mom + Pop Music [2015]

Fire Note Says: Neon Indian floats – will you follow?

Album Review: Full disclosure: I was assigned this review months ago. And I listened to it at the time, I really did. I just couldn’t hear it. So indebted to tape hiss and AM radio aural registers, the album floated for a while in the living room or in my headphones. But I wasn’t there.

Once you set your ears to hear the dog whistle under the rustling of the low-fi wind, you’ll pick out the unique vocal phrasings, marvel at the glut of processing. Let the story of a guy and his laptop and his million-and-one ideas wash over you.

But you can see the dream of vaporwave sail off into the sunset it so often painted for itself. Somehow this much craft in one place peels back the facade, and we’re left with so much pastiche, that’s it hard to tell what’s meat and what’s sizzle. Maybe that’s point. Last year was sort of funny like that.

Key Tracks: “Annie” / “Baby’s Eyes” / “Slumlord”

Artists With Similar Fire: PC Music / Toro Y Moi / Richard Marx

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– Reviewed by Neil Barbour