2009 was a good year for Alan Palomo. His latest musical iteration, Neon Indian, broke through the industry in a big way with debut release _Psychic Chasms_, earning a slew of positive reviews as well as landing high up on a number of end-of-the-year lists and eventually sending him and his band on tour for the next year and a half.

Palomo finally took a break from the tour circuit during the winter of 2010 to go to Finland to record his sophomore record, _Era Extraña_. Now finished, Neon Indian is hitting the road again and will be playing a streak of college towns with MTV-fueled rapper Kreayshawn. The pair will be playing Oct. 25 at the Blue Note. Palomo spoke with MOVE about the touring, Helsinki and a bizarre Christmas Eve with the Twin Peaks theme song.

**[MOVE]: How’s the tour been going so far?**
**[Alan Palomo]**: It’s been going great. We got a couple more dates left before we start the college tour, but we’ve been on the road for about four weeks, and its pretty rad. It’s been a lot of intimate shows, and we’re going for that vibe, and it’s probably been the best line up we’ve play with since I started touring with Neon Indian, so it’s been really good for that.

**[M]: Your latest album Era Extraña was recorded mostly in Helsinki, Finland. What made you want to record there?**
**[AP]**: I’d been there a couple times on tour and I think my initial motivations for going there were more conducive to personal development and really wanting to take time to digest because I went from living in Austin, Texas, to touring for almost a year and a half straight off of _Psychic Chasms_, so when I went there I was kind of just looking for a bit of a break and digest and calculate the next move sonically.

**[M]: How did recording in Helsinki end up influencing the record?**
**[AP]**: Aside from my own weird little way of vacationing, it kind of evolved into trying to learn how to use all these weird instruments I’d acquired that I wanted to incorporate into the record and toward the end I have enough of these long-winded sonic experiments that I could eventually Frankenstein-ed into these four-and-a-half-minute songs.

**[M]: Did anything weird happen to you while you were in Helsinki?**
**[AP]**: There was a lot of really weird stuff. I think the lack of sunlight and weather really shaped my general disposition after a while. There was a time when my friend up [visiting] and it was Christmas Eve and we were trying to go there to have this big Christmas Eve dinner and we get to the building and, of course, it’s closed. And I just remember being so incredibly frustrated having walked out in this weather and then hearing my friend say, “Is that the ‘Twin Peaks’ theme?” and the Twin Peaks theme song is echoing from the train station and it’s this really bizarre, surreal kind of moment of hearing (the song) and having nothing but snow all around you.”

**[M]: With the breakneck speed of the internet, do you think it’s become easier to dismiss new music or new sounds that are emerging online?**
**[AP]**: I don’t know if it’s become easier, but it’s geared people’s impressions to do so. I think we should always remember the people who are putting forth the effort to do this, do this with as much care and generally for all the right reasons. It’s interesting.

**[M]: Do you feel that you’ve ever been pigeonholed by the sub-genre of chillwave?**
**[AP]**: Maybe in the beginning, but I don’t think I could ever put myself in a position where I let (how somebody) might construe the music as or what it could be touching on would define it more so than the product itself. I think at the end of the day, it’s good music because it’s what I’m inclined to do. It’s what I love to do. A couple of words associated with it shouldn’t necessarily tamper the experience of creating it.