Alan Palomo (of Neon Indian) Tours A World Of Hassle

The plan was simple: a new album for Alan Palomo’s long-running project Neon Indian, the fourth installment of an unhurriedly growing body of work stretching back to 2009’s Psychic Chasms, this time with a swerve into vintage Peruvian cumbia and a political album concept. But the self-imposed creative prompt turned out to be more of a muzzle, and the work stalled. Logistical problems set in. Then the pandemic happened. Deadlines came and went, the creative thread got dropped, and the project went terminally adrift.

Palomo also found himself similarly floating through the ambiguous psychic space of quarantine, where time, space, and the meaning of concepts like “deadline” and “career trajectory” start to shed their certainty. His attempts to find steady ground went wrong in almost slapstick fashion—when he invested in a professional home studio upgrade only to have a construction crew move in next door, followed by a particularly noisy nightingale that took up residence outside his window. It started to feel like he was a protagonist in a Pynchon novel who finds their certain-seeming life suddenly rebooted as comedy for the entertainment of mysterious unknown parties.

Like Oedipa Maas and Larry "Doc" Sportello before him, Palomo got through the experience by giving himself over to the flow. He let go of the album concept, followed by the Neon Indian name. (“I said what I'd wanted to say with that project.”) He bought a piano and started learning to play it properly for the first time. Soon the creative current picked up and started pulling him in an unexpected but fruitful direction, back to the sophisti-pop of Prefab Sprout, the Blue Nile, and Bryan Ferry that form some of his deepest core musical influences. Borrowing a quote from Inherent Vice that aptly described its creative process, Palomo named the resulting work World of Hassle.

From the intricate fictional details packed into the cover art (co-created by Palomo and designer Robert Beatty, who also did the Japanese-import-inspired cover for 2015’s Vega Intl. Night School) to the lyrical collage of pop culture and political references to the music’s early-digital sheen, World of Hassle is a vivid piece of world-building that takes listeners into a slightly surreal pocket dimension saturated with anxiety and nostalgia, where jazz-funk and wide-shouldered Claude Montana suits never went out of style, and the Cold War chill that suffused Leonard Cohen’s 1988’s I’m Your Man never lifted.

Palomo’s World of Hassle is a Pynchonesque place, packed with characters and situations rendered in dreamily absurdist strokes—guerilla freedom fighters camped out in a Rainforest Cafe in “The Wailing Mall,” a crumbling ex-pop star in “The Return of Mickey Milan,” the Leisure Suit Larry-does-Ibiza fantasy of “Nudista Mundial ’89” (featuring Mac DeMarco, who hosted some of the album’s sessions in his home studio). There’s a free-floating air of anxiety, compounded by a crisply digitized sonic palette borrowed from the 80s golden age of rock stars like Bryan Ferry and Sting leaving their own breakthrough projects to strike out as jazzy solo musicians.

It’s parody, sure—of rock star ego trips, the mall-ification of America, and our own self-obsession, even on the brink of apocalypse—but it’s also dead serious, the sound of history repeating itself as the Doomsday Clock clicks past its Reagan-era maximum and nuclear anxiety comes back into style along with digital synthesizers and sax solos. The deeper it pulls you into its own uncanny reality, the clearer it becomes how thin the borders are between Alan Palomo’s World of Hassle and our own.

Neggy Gemmy

Neggy Gemmy’s (FKA Negative Gemini) heartfelt electronic pop is built around duality. In astrology, Geminis represent polarity and though Lindsey French—the producer, singer, and songwriter behind the name—is an upbeat Sagittarius, her music has always been linked to that idea. The Los Angeles-based artist delivers sparkling vocal hooks alongside angst-ridden missives, and floating atmospherics with chest-caving bass. She’s constantly swerving and shapeshifting as her interests and surroundings change: no two releases are quite alike, yet within all of their DNA lies a magnetic songwriting sensibility that makes you want to sing, chant, and scream along with her. 

The breadth of French’s palette and the emotion in her storytelling are evident in her upcoming third album, whose influences range from “Princess of Pop” Kylie Minogue to maximalist dance acts Basement Jaxx and Daft Punk. The songs are layered and complex—apt accompaniment for her vulnerable introspection. On downtempo-pop opener “California” for example, French’s hopeful lyrics sprawl across weightless electronica with a ground-shaking, hip-hop-tinged bassline. “I just wanna go and never come back,” she sings. “You’re saying slow down, but I just wanna go fast.” It’s a simple sentiment, rendered all the more moving by the colorful backdrop.

“It’s easy for me to make instrumentals,” says French, underselling her meticulous approach to the craft, “but it’s challenging to make a good pop song that makes you feel something.”

But doing exactly that—making art that honestly reveals emotions, and provokes the same in listeners—has long been the goal of her work, even outside of creating music. French runs the 100% Electronica label with artist and husband George Clanton, hosts a weekly virtual reality 360 livestream on YouTube from inside a spaceship, and designs unique merch like CBD Reiki Moonbears - her new potent CBD gummy bears - all important components for creating a vibrant, fully realized world around sound. And her M.O. as Neggy Gemmy is to take full ownership of her music, writing and producing 100% solo. “I’m the only one that will do it like I would,” she says. 

Neggy Gemmy was born from movement. She spent her childhood hopping around the South from Louisiana to Texas, then Kentucky, and finally Virginia for her father’s work. Songwriting was how French, a self-described introvert, felt most comfortable expressing herself. In college, she joined a rap group, where she learned how to produce using GarageBand and Logic. It opened up a new skill set with endless possibilities.

When the group disbanded, French continued to produce on her own as Neggy Gemmy. She relocated from Richmond, VA to Brooklyn in 2014 to pursue her music career. She found a home in the local underground electronic scene, a community that echoes through the sweaty club beats and crushing basslines of her 2016 album, Body Work. As ever, she experimented with a vast palette of sounds and moods across the record, but all the songs felt linked in their devotion to the dance floor—like she was writing with proper sound systems in mind. One of the album’s singles, “You Never Knew,” on which she sings of lost love over icy percussion, offered a turning point in her career when it premiered on the iconic taste making blog Gorilla vs. Bear. 

Never one to stay still long, French spent the next two years touring on and off while writing her next project, Bad Baby. The EP shifted toward a lo-fi indie rock sound, glowing with the warmth of more analog instruments. French used her introspective songs to extract her deepest, darkest emotions, from the despondence of “Skydiver” to the raw rage of “Innocence.” The project proved that she’s a keen student of whatever genre she touches, no matter how niche. 

French moved out to Los Angeles in 2018. The city marked a new era in her career, which bubbles sonically throughout her next album. Intended to be a driving album in a nod to L.A.’s car-centric culture, the LP cruises like a joyride down Sunset Boulevard, traversing sunny house, poolside disco, and darker, psychedelic indie—a fitting soundtrack for a story about being seduced by the city’s glamour. Like any good movie based on a true story, the album feels dramatic, but it’s real too.