(Lefse/Popfrenzy)

Sun-kissed nostalgi-pop

It seems that 2009 was the year that hipsters discovered what fun it could be to record things on the cheap. We’ve seen the emergence of Wavves, Memory Tapes/Weird Tapes/Memory Cassette, and tUnE-yArDs – hell, even Passion Pit display a love of the weird artefacts that come with DIY recording. Add to this list Neon Indian, a Texan duo whose début album, Psychic Chasms, opens with (AM), a nifty little 30-second track that could be the manifesto for this whole lo-fi resurgence: it sounds like a snatch of Steely Dan recorded to tape then left to melt on the parcel shelf your family’s hatchback. Its successor, Deadbeat Summer, is even more memorable: in a cleaner production, it could have been the soundtrack to an early-nineties Streets ice-cream commercial. Terminally Chill features a noodly guitar solo that would have been rejected by Ted Nugent for being too gauche; while Mind, Drips features an eight-bit keyboard line that could have come from one of your old SNES games. And while the lyrics of lead single Should Have Taken Acid With You deal with some, erm, adult themes (as the title indicates), that doesn’t detract from the bubblegum-sweet nature of the backing track. In short, Psychic Chasms is the soundtrack to the childhood summer you never experienced, but you fervently wish for – and even if its delayed release means it’s a little late to be your summer soundtrack, it’ll still keep you warm well into autumn.

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CHAD PARKHILL

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