11. VEGA INTL. Night School / Neon Indian

Neon Indian's evolution has been quite remarkable as brainchild Alan Palomo continues to expand his electro-pop palette.  Psychic Charms (2009) was a leading light for chillwave, a lo-fi record that your genius kid brother would have made in his makeshift home studio consisting of an Atari Commodore and a cassette player.  On Era Extrana (2011), Palomo went to Finland to be reprogrammed, replacing his eight-bit beats with the sounds of mid-winter decay, a hi-fi pop ode to the elusiveness of virtual love.

Incredibly, VEGA INTL. Night School drives even deeper into the future.  It is a maximalist, effusive paeon to club life and the city's alluring late-night glow.  The songs buzz with skittering electronica while bringing to mind strange retro clubs of the future, dystopian Blade Runner watering holes where the only thing that holds the chaos together is the dance floor.  Even the track names are neon signs beckoning to the adventurous: "Street Level," "Smut!," "The Glitzy Hive," "Slumlord," and "Techno Clique."  Intricately assembled, each track pulses with energy and a commitment to getting the groove right, dark alleys be damned.

As always, The D Man prizes originality, degree of difficulty, and artfulness, while balancing the scales with listenability and enjoyment.  VEGA checks all of those boxes while pushing listeners to embrace dance music in dazzling locales.