Psychic Chasms by Neon Indian: Dig Up Your Thong Leotard!

The Hipster life-style has it’s own appropriate clothing, lingo, attitude/outlook on life and now its very own genre of music. Whether it is referred to as glo-fi, hypnagogic pop or chillwave, it’s sound is characterized as danceable, lite-electro-pop which most likely was recorded in a basement or closet. It is the kind of music you can’t help but bop your head to and often evokes images of spandex shorts, Atari, pigtails and ring-pops (for me at least.)

Alan Palomo, a twenty-something from Texas along with visual artist, Alicia Scardetta, make up Neon Indian and are responsible for Psychic Chasms which was released October 13. Neon Indian is Palomo’s third musical endeavor and in my eyes the most successful. The album’s success lies within its ability to have a lo-fi sound that does not fully consume the songs. Lo-fi records often remind me of the Cliff Notes to a really good book. Lo-fi can be seen as an easy way out for musicians, but not in Psychic Chasms’ case.

The video game soundtracks, heavy synth-sounds and the cloudy vocals come together to create a dream-like experience involving the rolling credits of an 80’s newscast. Each song creates its own visual vignette. “Deadbeat Summer”, the single from the album, paints a hot summer day bathed in sunshine, whimsical and love-struck. The track, “Laughing Gas” forcefully shoves an image of an 80’s workout video into my mind, neon sweatbands, high french-cut leotards and all.

Psychic Chasms is one of the few albums that fit under the hipster genre umbrella without cheapening it. Lo-fi does not become a cheat sheet, and the album retains its light and fluffy dance-ability. This is not a soul-searching album, or one with deep metaphoric lyrics but is carefully crafted and extremely visual.

Even if you don’t subscribe to the hipster agenda, you will enjoy this album. It’s tweed business suits on the news, it’s 80’s fabulous workouts, it’s happy, trippy fun.