Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Before Today

Ariel Pink is the internationally unknown old new artist the indie scene has been waiting for a while, not everybody knew his line of work until this LP was made, and the interesting about this LP is that is such a friendly weird underground music that no wonder everyone has been talking about this all year. Pitchfork gave it a 9, and almost any blogger out there have been giving wonderful reviews, I'm not going to be the exception, for a guy that was the first non Animal Collective related guy to sign in their personal record label you know you're about to take off your shoes and step on holy grounds.

The music in this LP is a slap in the face for all the labels that don't give a chance to the (too) weird underground artists, but what is Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti all about?, well lets start from saying that it is not a record made on a room with cassettes like he used to do in the 90's and in his beginnings, also lets say that is an LP made to be performed live, something that he couldn't do when he didn't have a band to back him op, and finally lets add that is not an album that sticks with one genre, so don't expect a garage rock album.

I'm sure many of you don't need the introduction to Ariel Pink this year, and we have Google, so I'll just cut the bullshit and talk about the originality and appealing weirdness of this LP; for starters, it has influences from everybody, you can listen to tracks that sound pretty glam rock like "Little Wing", some other sound very disco and very early Michael Jackson like "Beverly Kills", a weird new America and freaky folk sounding inspired re-issued "L'estat (Acc. To The Widow's Maid)", a very old sounding garage rock cover of The Rock Ramrods "Bright Lit Blue Skies", some very psychedelic influenced songs, and don't forget really sweet ballads like Can't Hear My Eyes. This LP is all over the place but strangely nothing feels out of place, that is how cohesive this thing really is.

Ariel Pink has set the future of what underground experimental artists should start doing, I'm no expert on Ariel Pink, but opening his sound to a wider audience might be the beginning of a bigger scale revolution. We would have to thank 4AD for giving also the wider distribution of a very sui generis artist.

I really don't know what genre is this, and its hard to put your finger into it, the thing is that its something new with an old feeling, it has all this old sounds mixed up together but nothing could have been that way if we weren’t today here. Nostalgia is a new way of doing music too. The only thing that it has is a bettered quality sound than the average garage music, but its still lo-fi which is nice. So I'll just say this is Lo-Fi...no genre required, listen for yourself and make your own opinion.

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - "Bright Lit Blue Skies" from gorillavsbear.net on Vimeo.

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Round & Round from Delo Creative on Vimeo.

Tracklist:

1. Hot Body Rub
2. Bright Lit Blue Skies
3. L'estat (Acc. To The Widow's Maid)
4. Fright Night (Nevermore)
5. Round And Round
6. Beverly Kills
7. Butt-House Blondies
8. Little Wig
9. Can't Hear My Eyes
10. Reminiscences
11. Menopause Man
12. Revolution's A Lie

Rate: 9/10

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