A welcome return for Neon Indian, whose last album ‘Era Extraña’ showed how imagination and a slightly quirky approach to electronic music can pay dividends. Here, on his first record for four years, he presents confident and occasionally chunky beats that are packed with off-kilter 1980s influences and a lot of endearing weirdness, which keeps the pot bubbling early on. ‘Dear Skorpio Magazine’ is a particularly joyous mix of full bodied rhythms and heady vocals, and it leads straight into the outstanding ‘Slumlord’, one of the album’s best tracks. The album is so-called because it brings VEGA, Alan Palomo’s other alias besides Neon Indian, into play – and it is this side to his style that gives the album the bursts of funk that serve it so well. For fans of off-centre electronica to enjoy and play repeatedly, because there are a lot of treasures to be found here!
5 out of 5
Reviewed by Ben Hogwood
