Neon Indian's 'Era Extraña' Influenced by Helsinki Winter, Painkillers, 'Blade Runner'

Of all the places Alan Palomo could have gone to record Neon Indian's new album, 'Era Extraña,' the Texas native chose Finland. In winter.

"It was a cold like I'd never experienced," Palomo admits to Spinner. "It was pretty icy."

Turned out the sub-freezing temperatures made for pretty decent working conditions: Not only did Palomo not want to go outside, the dark-of-winter vibe helped him focus on the music: Bold, sweeping electro-rock pop songs that penetrate his self-described cabin fever like warm rays of sunshine.

With 'Era Extraña' out now via Static Tongues/Mom + Pop, Palomo gave Spinner the scoop on the possible meanings of the album title, moving from Texas to Brooklyn and a recent collaboration with the Flaming Lips.

You recorded 'Era Extraña' in Helsinki, in the middle of winter. Why?

It felt like if there was any time to be there, I might as well be there when it's not at its most inhabitable. I actually went there right around the winter solstice, when the days start getting really short, and in the entire six weeks I was there, I think I saw the sun twice. And even when the sun is out, you're encapsulated in this crazy fog bank and it puts you in a mood, for sure. I didn't think I was going to be that influenced by the atmosphere, but it did kind of give me cabin fever a couple of times, though I wanted to be put in a position where all I could really do was just focus on my instruments. But it was still pretty gorgeous in the wintertime. The city is usually covered in snow for most of it, and it's really white and there's a placid, tranquil feel to it.

Listen to Neon Indian's Full 'Era Extraña' Album for Free

What effect did all that have on the songs?

In New York, it's like, "OK, I'm going to do this until a certain hour, and then I'm going to meet up with my bandmates and do that for a minute." There's always some other thing that's waiting to happen. Then you get to Helsinki and it's like, "I'm here for this indefinite period of time, and you just wake up and music is supposed to happen at some point." That aspect made for a lot of strange soundscape stuff. And on top of that, I was still figuring out how to learn a lot of the new instruments I had acquired, so it took a while to get into this headspace where I could feel I was really writing music with some particular goal, feeling like, "OK, now it's starting to turn into a novel, and starting to feel like one as well." That feeling didn't happen immediately. It took a little bit of experimenting to be able to have this aesthetic. I had this image in my head, in a weird way, of what I wanted the album to look like, what images it evokes, like I was trying to put music to a film feed.

How typical is that for you?

When I studied film, I used to write to music, and these days, I kind of do the opposite. I sort of have these movie concepts in my head that music is kind of generated from, and in that way, Helsinki definitely did influence me. I feel in a way it was a very transparent record in the sense that, in retrospect, when I listened to the songs, it sounds like I was a little bit under the influence of whatever it feels like to live there at that particular time of year.

Did you have the images in mind before you got to Helsinki?

To some extent I had it, but it was just a few sort of captured stills, a few strung-together words, something that would help create a concept, but it wasn't until I was in Helsinki that I had time to sit and learn how to use these synths and watch movies. I had this specific moment where I watched 'Blade Runner' at 4 in the morning on a bunch of painkillers, because I was having this crazy wisdom-tooth freakout thing, and I was hanging out with my friend and just having my mind blown. I had seen the movie before, but it was really bizarre to suddenly feel like that movie isn't quite so far-fetched as it once might have seemed. It feels like L.A. a few minutes from now.

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How much did that play into the meaning of "extraña" in the album title?

I definitely went into it wanting to have a couple of variables as far as what it could immediately make you think of. But the decision to call it that was more centered around the idea that I like that the word "extraña," the word for "strange," is also the word for "missing" or "longing" in Spanish, it just depends on context. It speaks to the idea that it can be the same thing, or that longing for something or missing is a strange feeling in a David Lynch-ian way. And not just with art, but I look at the way a lot of my own life has developed and it feels like in order to trudge into the future, you're sort of taking all these scrapped, trashed bits of the past and using that to inform what happens next. It's like that everything that happens is just a weird amalgamation of everything that came before it.

Did your collaboration with the Flaming Lips influence 'Era Extraña?'

I think it did. Originally, when the collaboration was even set to happen, we didn't have a template for it necessarily. We just knew that we wanted to work on something. When I started working on 'Era Extraña,' I noticed they had a couple of overlapping days on the studio calendar and Wayne [Coyne] was like, "Well, dude, how about we just show up early and f--- around with some instruments and see what happens?" That's actually why I was so excited to do it. There was no template, no pre-written notion of what it was supposed to be, we just wanted it to be.

You live in Brooklyn now. Do you miss Texas?

There's so many of these creature comforts I miss being able to have in Texas. There's a certain luxury to being able to get into a car and drive for 20 minutes and not see anyone and be able to find your own little space and time to clear your head. It's not that New York doesn't have that, but it's different. If I'm playing music in my room, everyone in the apartment can hear it, and everyone directly below me and in the apartment next door can hear it. It's a very different kind of vibe, knowing that you are trying to accommodate and not step on anyone's toes. It requires some social gymnastics in that sense. But that's also what's fun about it: New York also has a way of lighting a fire under your ass and keeping you focused on what you want to do.