Heavily lauded by Pitchfork Media and hailed by Rolling Stone as one of 2010's hottest new bands, Neon Indian (co-based in Mexico City, Mexico and NYC) are the leading edge of the nascent "chillwave" movement. To figure what the hell that even means, I would suggest checking out the band's MySpace page and sampling the tracks thereon.
Wikipedia seems to have as good a definition of the sound as anyone:
Chillwave... is a contentious genre of music where artists are often characterized by their heavy use of effects processing, synthesizers, looping, sampling, and heavily filtered vocals with simple melodic lines. The name refers to the influence of New Wave music sounds, with nostalgia for 80s synthpop filtered through a distorted lens, re-envisioning the era in a more lo-fi sense.
So there you go. Sonically, Neon Indian are like a candy-coated valium - pleasantly relaxing but exciting enough to leave one wanting more. Hints of Gary Numan and Ultravox along-side techno-gyspy folksiness make Neon Indian dance music for robots on the last dregs of their power packs. Plus, their unrecognizable cover of T.Rex's "Children of the Revolution" is worth the price of admission in itself.
Neon Indian will be chugging the chill on the Budweiser stage at 6:00 Sunday, June 5th. The Houston Free Press Summer Fest can't wait to see you there.
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