VIDEO PREMIERE | Neutrals, "Personal Computing"

Presenting the a-side off the final contribution from Slumberland Records' SLR30 Singles Series; the Bay Area's beloved artful punky dodgers Neutrals present the debut of the fuzzy visuals for "Personal Computing". Featuring direction by Jenn Heard with footage of the band provided by Heidi Chiao showcases Scottish ex-pat Allan McNaughton and cohorts through the lens of early 80s styled electric imaging. Performance shots are interspersed between edits of antique PCs and other assorted peripherals and paraphernalia like witnessing the album covers from Talking Heads' Remain in Light or Adam and the Ants’ Kings of the Wild Frontier springing to new contemporary life. Following up the Rent / Your House EP from Domestic Departure and their lauded debut Kebab Disco from Emotional Response Records; Neutrals tackle our retro romanticism that re-imagines all that could have been in an era of undermined utopias and lamentations for that better tomorrow promised by all of yesterdays pentiums, 386s, 486s, scuzzy drives and so forth.

Blending primitive cell phone footage of Neutrals and throwback commercials of obsolete 80s consumer electronics; Jenn Heard crystallizes the band's full time / part time punk spirit in a snazzy amber blaze of cathode ray cuttlefish toned sepia. The tribute to defunct technologies, the glossy page fetishization of futuristic forecasting seen in magazine advertisements and fantasies that focus on floppy and other assorted parallel LPT ports is a love letter to latter day twentieth century guitar minimalism and those beloved, antiquated CPU systems for the masses. “Personal Computing” features McNaughton shredding an assemblage of caffeinated riffs in a suggestive semi-romantic ballad that takes the computer love notion to new levels of antiquated interpersonal infatuations and objectum-intimacy.

Getting in gear with Neutrals; photographed by Jason Hendardy.

Allan McNaughton of Neutrals and director Jenn Heard shared their thoughts on the sounds and visions of “Personal Computing”:

Allan:

It may come as a surprise, but I was a nerdy kid. In the early 80s the personal computing boom was in full swing. I skipped Atari went straight from Pong to a Sinclair ZX81 with a 16K Ram Pack and joined the school computer club. It wasn't long before I was bored with the intricacies of programming but the futuristic aesthetic of computer magazines still grabbed my attention. War Games, Crash Smash, BBC Micro, Apple IIe, Pet Shop Boys on Top Of The Pops... I'm not sure where the sexual fetish angle of the song comes in, maybe something for my shrink to unpack. For the video, we finally got to work with our old friend Jenn Dorn Heard (Sea Blite, Younger Lovers), with the only challenge that it had to be done during lockdown...

Jenn:

For this video, I combed the Internet for early 80's computer commercials and documentaries on technology sourced on VHS or BetaMax for the added extra tracking and noise. The song's lyrics steered me towards footage of men and women gazing excitedly into computer monitors. And, the band's handsomely-designed album art inspired the color finish. Luckily, the Internet also granted me a live performance of “Personal Computing” shot on a cell phone so I could tie the band in.

Neutrals’ “Personal Computing” b/w “In the Future“ is available now via Slumberland Records.