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Music & Art: Rainbow Colored Memories

This month, Insound rounds up four awesome rainbow beauties.

Genres come and go in indie music all the time and these days they seem to come and go so fast it’s hard to keep track of it all. In the wake of ill-fated labels like “Glo-fi”, “Hypnagogic Pop” (not to mention Hipstergogic Pop) and “Hauntology” there have risen a new brand of bands that take as much from the faint memories of 80’s movie soundtracks as they do from lo-fi rock bands. With them has risen a trend in album art that is representative of the vibrant colors they evoke and the melted world they inhabit between digital perfection and worn-tape crackle. Below are some of our favorites:

Memory Tapes – Seek Magic
Nothing could evoke this Jersey pioneer’s sound more than this melted mixture of rainbows and blurred paint strokes. Sounds and looks just like your favorite cassettes after a good afternoon left out in the August sun.

Neon Indian – Psychic Chasms
Neon Indian’s hazy concoction of 80’s synth dreams and lo-fi sheen is perfectly represented by a cut n’ past swath of colored paper and magazine gloss, digging on both the muted explosion of tones and his no frills aesthetic.

Small Black – Small Black
Long Island’s Small Black pastes a jagged 80’s font over a digital poof of confetti. What comes out is a nice balance between DIY spirit and candy-colored rudimentary elements and that’s a pretty accurate representation of the band’s dreamy, nostalgic pop as well.

Zomby – One Foot Ahead of the Other
Zomby may not be as clearly aligned with the other three musically but his cracked view of dubstep filtered through the broken remains of a NES entertainment system seems to somehow drag through the same neighborhoods. The art for his latest EP glows with kaleidoscope elements of digital rainbows and a distinctly modern lean on the font pulling it towards the future.

Jaime Derringer, Founder + Executive Editor of Design Milk, is a Jersey girl living in SoCal. She dreams about funky, artistic jewelry + having enough free time to enjoy some of her favorite things—running, reading, making music, and drawing.