HAVANA.

The serendipitous alignment of my class schedule, the perks of my mother’s former occupation and the convenience of British citizenship have afforded me the opportunity to go to Cuba for ten days, and as such a fleeting blanket of silence will fall over these pages until my return Monday the 20th. All other aspects of Neon Gold will continue go about business as usual, and any label-related queries should still be sent to neongoldmusic@gmail.com, where the prettier, more responsible half of Neon Gold will be on hand to receive any and all inquiries.

Upon my return, we’ll have all kinds of exciting newsbombs to drop on you, including coverage of whatever we can remember from CMJ 2008 and the announcement of Neon Gold’s imminent sophomore release (guesses welcome in the comments, but don’t spoil the surprise if you’ve already been privy to some inside information).

Until then, here’s a song that – if not for its title – you’d have difficulty convincing me was written with any setting in the world in mind other than Havana by night.

MP3: “Sao Paolo” - Guillemots

Beyond that, it's worth drawing attention to the killer set Passion Pit unleashed for their performance on AOL's The Interface last week. I'm not normally one to get psyched for in-studio live videos, but anyone who hasn't seen these guys live yet needs the new version of "Smile Upon Me" in their life and this is the next best thing to the real deal. Video and MP3 here.

// Matt Robinson //