Neon Neon | ||
| Allmusic Biography : A collaboration between Super Furry Animals Gruff Rhys and left-field hip-hop producer Boom Bip -- who first worked together in 2005 when Rhys added vocals to "Dos & Donts" from Boom Bips Blue Eyed in the Red Room -- Neon Neon play warm, dancey music informed by 80s new wave, Prince, and Kraftwerk, among others, while also calling on the contributions of artists like Spank Rock, Yo Majesty, Har Mar Superstar, and the Magic Numbers to fill out their sound. They began recording their debut album in the summer of 2006, playing a finalized version of it at a CMJ party the following year, and around the same time the first two singles, "Trick for Treat" and "Raquel," were released. However, the final product, Stainless Style (which was meant to revolve around the life of the carmaker John DeLorean), didnt come out until March 2008 on Lex Records; it was ultimately on the shortlist for that years Mercury Prize. The duo reteamed for 2013s Praxis Makes Perfect, a musical portrait of publisher and left-wing activist Giangiacomo Feltrinelli. | ||
 | Album: 1 of 2 Title: Stainless Style Released: 2008-03-16 Tracks: 12 Duration: 43:04 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Neon Theme (02:21) 2 Dream Cars (03:25) 3 I Told Her on Alderaan (03:43) 4 Raquel (05:01) 5 Trick for Treat (04:44) 6 Steel Your Girl (03:33) 7 I Lust U (02:59) 8 Sweat Shop (03:57) 9 Belfast (03:08) 10 Michael Douglas (04:13) 11 Luxury Pool (03:55) 12 Stainless Style (01:59) |
| Stainless Style : Allmusic album Review : Reduced to a cold, hard synopsis, Neon Neons Stainless Style sounds like a joke. A collaboration between Super Furry Animals singer/songwriter Gruff Rhys and Los Angeles underground hip-hop/electronic producer Boom Bip, Neon Neon sounds like an unlikely pair on paper and theyve made their partnership even stranger by creating a concept album about John DeLorean, the automobile industry maverick who was as notorious for his futuristic designs as for his 1982 arrest for drug trafficking, a charge he later beat yet which gave him a stigma he couldnt shake. Its a quintessential 80s tragedy which provides Neon Neon an opportunity to craft a quintessentially 80s tribute, something they deliver with startling accuracy on Stainless Style. Apart from the cuts where Spank Rock, Yo Majesty and Fatlip are brought in -- their presence dictates a harder, modern production from Boom Bip -- the album is so precise in its re-creation of the gleaming glitz of the go-go Reaganomics era that it could be mistaken as a relic from 1983, but the remarkable thing about Stainless Style is that theres not a sliver of irony underneath the cold shimmer of all of its analog synths and chorused, echoed guitars. There is humor here -- sly, knowing humor, as there should be with offhand references to Star Wars, Raquel Welch and Michael Douglas, along with deliberate allusions to early electro and tight, tuneful new wave pop -- but this isnt camp, as theres a surprising melancholy flowing beneath the transparently shallow surfaces on "I Told Her on Alderaan" and "Raquel." Even with those trace elements of sadness, Stainless Style is hardly a heavy album: theres just enough weariness to the music to give it emotional pull, but the chief attraction of this tight 12-track concept album is how Neon Neon has created an album that isnt so much a straight-up replica of 80s excess as one that puts all of that indulgence into perspective, both emotionally and musically. | ||
 | Album: 2 of 2 Title: Praxis Makes Perfect Released: 2013-04-29 Tracks: 10 Duration: 31:21 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Praxis Makes Perfect (02:53) 2 The Jaguar (03:01) 3 Dr. Zhivago (03:51) 4 Hoops With Fidel (02:54) 5 Hammer & Sickle (02:51) 6 Shopping (I Like To) (03:06) 7 Mid Century Modern Nightmare (01:58) 8 The Leopard (03:15) 9 Listen to the Rainbow (03:24) 10 Ciao Feltrinelli (04:02) |
| Praxis Makes Perfect : Allmusic album Review : Neon Neons musical portrait of John DeLorean, Stainless Style, was so unique in its aims and successful in its execution that it seemed like a one-of-a-kind achievement -- that is, until Gruff Rhys and Boom Bips Bryan Hollon reunited a few years later to set the life of the aristocratic, communist Italian publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli to song. They triumph again with Praxis Makes Perfect, but aside from the biographical concept and the largely electronic arrangements, they dont repeat themselves much. Feltrinelli might be a more obscure figure than DeLorean, but hes no less fascinating, and these songs have a more overtly theatrical flair befitting his lifes operatic sweep. He published Dr. Zhivago in 1957 (after having the manuscript smuggled out of the Soviet Union); hobnobbed with Fidel Castro; founded a militant organization as well as a publishing house and chain of bookstores that survive more than 40 years after his passing, and died under mysterious circumstances in 1972. Asia Argentos narration of these milestones over Morse code beeps tie the album together and add to the breathless, musical-like feeling (indeed, Neon Neon even performed some "interactive concerts" of Praxis Makes Perfect at the National Theatre Wales shortly after the albums release). Musically, Hollon and Rhys take a lush, sometimes seedy approach, nodding to Italo and Euro-pop influences as they use their electronics as a versatile backdrop instead of 80s time machines as they did on Stainless Style: bubbly synths, intentionally schmaltzy saxophones, and clever musical allusions like the Latin lilt of "Hoops with Fidel"s verses show just how versatile Neon Neons sound really is. Likewise, the songwriting remains razor-sharp, particularly on the songs that directly address some of Feltrinellis seeming contradictions. "Hammer & Sickle"s refrain of "the winner, the loser and the middle man" touches on the kind of outlook he must have had to be radically left-wing and yet also so engaged in the retail world, a concept that "Shopping (I Like To)"s irresistible electro-pop expands on with its winking lyrics and vocal cameo from bona fide Italian pop star Sabrina Salerno. Crucially, as on Stainless Style, you dont have to be intimately familiar with Praxis Makes Perfects subject to appreciate the album: this is a wonderfully entertaining collection of pop songs that just happen to be well-versed in history and political and economic theories. Once again, Rhys and Hollon bring their very special brand of wit and creativity to the concept album, and it only whets the appetite to see which historical figure will get the Neon Neon treatment next. | ||