Alan Palomo, the poly-personaed artist behind two solo acts–dreamy blog band Neon Indian (who played Jimmy Fallon as a replacement for Kings of Convenience in February), and the Italo disco dance-inspired VEGA–is one of the music industry's newest golden children. His appearance at this week's South by Southwest festival in Austin marks his entrance into the big league, along with a homecoming for the Texas native. Not only is he performing over a dozen shows as both acts, the 21-year-old is finally able to get inside Austin's major venues–often as the major draw.

LEILA BRILLSON: VEGA has been around longer, but Neon Indian is the more popular act. Are you focusing on one over the other?

ALAN PALOMO: In terms of recording, this year is going to be more about VEGA. As soon as I'm done with South By, I'm going straight to New York to record the new album. It poses a challenge to play shows for both. Here, its evenly split, so I have to find a way to shift that state of mind, almost immediately–in some cases within the same half hour time period. VEGA comes from this place of pristine pop anthems, and it tries to replicate the feeling of "Bizarre Love Triangle," where you've been listening to it since childhood but you have no idea who does it. Neon Indian, on the other hand, is this weird extension of myself. There is no sonic guideline, it is whatever I happen to be feeling at the moment.

BRILLSON: Your new single, "Sleep Paralysist," was put out on Green Label Sound, which is an offshoot of Mountain Dew. What was that experience like?

PALOMO: Well, Green Label initially approached me about it, and I was pretty thrilled, because Holy Ghost and Chromeo [both have recorded with Greenhouse] have really utilized it in a couple of interesting ways. Once I met the whole crew that worked there, I realized I was just taking advantage of resources to help me back this interesting collaboration.  I love the idea of being able to work on something over the weekend and then put it out. If GLS can facilitate that, I think its pretty excellent.

BRILLSON: How was working with Grizzly Bear's Chris Taylor, the producer of "Sleep Paralysist"?

PALOMO: People may think this is the next big direction for Neon Indian, but Chris and I had already been talking about it. We just wanted to get together and head to [Taylor's Terrible Records] church in Greenpoint and see what happened. The acoustics were out of control. Chris and I geeked out on a couple of sounds together. Our next project is putting out a kind of Jesus and Mary Chain-inspired single on a 7" for Terrible. If there is anything Chris is really gifted at is tailoring these very unique guitar sounds, and I want to try a predominantly guitar-driven sound. I want to do more of these sorts of collaborations. Not being in a band, it gets a little lonely sometimes.

BRILLSON: The Wall Street Journal just published a post about "chill wave" as the next big musical trend. Can you tell us, what is chill wave, and are you it?

PALOMO: [Laughs] Chill wave is a hairstyle that can only be obtained through a curling iron and some aqua gel. I don't know if my particular coif at the moment is "chill wave"–it may be a little more of a hypno-go-go "Glo Fi" look. I think the term started as a joke. I think its a thing journalists perpetuated until it became real. I've barely met the whole chill wave battalion (Washed Out, Toro et Moi, Memory Tapes), but they are pretty cool dudes. Yet, we've bonded more over the idea of having different monikers than what the press must think we do, which is playing Nintendo music without blowing the cartridge out first while watching 8-bit patterns form. Instead, I think we just bonded more as being young bands who approach music in unique ways.