Arlo Indigo, "Dreamboat" (Self-Released)

A collection that should have a former bedroom Bowie gunning for broader stages.

By Cris Lankenau

[BEDROOM BOWIE] Arlo Indigo's Dreamboat EP manages to say a lot in just three tracks. For starters, he's enlisted a band, retiring his fuzzy electronic drum loops in favor of restrained, funk-tinged chops. Indigo thrives in the roomier arrangements, as if he's finally able to authentically emulate childhood heroes like New Order and Pet Shop Boys. Nowhere is the British dance-floor influence more prominent than on "Purple Mountain Drive," with its breezy chorus of lamented love and kaleidoscopic bursts of volume. "Your World" veers toward psychedelic soul with an assemblage of the reductive, minor-seven chords used so expertly in the Motown songbook. But the crown jewel of the trio is closer "Petting the Crocodile." Opening with an angular, palm-muted guitar riff, sounding like a lost cut from Low, the track incorporates all the tricks of Indigo's strange new bag into a wonderful cohesive whole. Its amped-up transition to a chunky chorus and blues-funk breakdown is a vibrant, dramatic close to a collection that should have a former bedroom Bowie gunning for broader stages.

SEE IT: Arlo Indigo plays Rontoms, 600 E Burnside St., with Ali Muhareb's Mujahedeen and Rare Diagram, on Sunday, June 19. 8 pm. Free. 21+.

Willamette Week

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Cris Lankenau

Cris Lankenau

Cris Lankenau has worked as an actor, weed salesman, wildposter, coffee roaster, deck hand, prep cook and music writer. He enjoys libraries and Lemonheads.

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