Ariel Pink

Buick6

too punk to drunk
In some old Voice review ( a rare good 'un):

Elton Jandek.

fucken gold.
 
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zhao

there are no accidents
OK. what the HELL is you people on about. this Ariel Pink or whatever he calls himself is this dude that graduated from Cal Arts a few years back; some of my friends know him and no one here gives a DAMN about his music. I've heard some songs and have to say they were rubbish or atleast very ignorable.

"the greatest"? wha?
 

mms

sometimes
confucius said:
OK. what the HELL is you people on about. this Ariel Pink or whatever he calls himself is this dude that graduated from Cal Arts a few years back; some of my friends know him and no one here gives a DAMN about his music. I've heard some songs and have to say they were rubbish or atleast very ignorable.

"the greatest"? wha?

are YOU ariel pink ? :)

i must say i'm a bit confused about the props for the lo fi sound, it's a kind of brilliant diy distraction, when i think i'd rather hear some of his excellent songwriting and construction in a more conventional way.
maybe this is total sacriledge but if someone explains to me the good things about the 'broken copy apart from a kind of pseudo nostalgic patina process i'll listen up ..
 
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henry s

Street Fighting Man
originally posted by mms
i must say i'm a bit confused about the props for the lo fi sound, it's a kind of brilliant diy distraction, when i think i'd rather hear some of his excellent songwriting and construction in a more conventional way.

A proper studio/recording budget would ruin this guy, in my opinion...his take on lo-fi is absolutely enchanting...expansive, ecstatic, an end in itself..."The Ballad Of Bobby Pyn" captures that "sunshine after rain" vibe as well as any recorded music I've ever heard (not my analogy, but totally appropriate)...this is dream-pop, walking that fine, compelling line between the sublime and the ridiculous...
 

mms

sometimes
henry s said:
this is dream-pop, walking that fine, compelling line between the sublime and the ridiculous...

well i think you put your finger on it there .


i've become quite obsessed with this lately, the kind of 'house' of the recording process, or the way you hear it .
i guess it comes down to stuff like harry smiths archives where the quality of the recordings kind of govern the world when you enter it. I've quite obsessed with them again lately, i was talking to derek in relation to these things the other day.
maybe ariel pinks act of recording the songs this way makes them 'dream'.
 

henry s

Street Fighting Man
there is definitely a sense of the nocturnal in Ariel Pink's music...which I think is directly tied into his recording process...nocturnal being a good thing, of course...(I'm thinking about Aphex Twin going on about how much he digs lucid dreaming because everything is better in the world of sleep)...not to make a direct musical comparison, but stuff like 'Pillow Talk" by Sylvia (and much of the David Toop-curated Sugar And Poison comp) has that same dreamy quality...and yeah, right on about Harry Smith et al...the closest thing to a musical daguerreotype I can think of...
 

PeteUM

It's all grist
don_quixote said:
utterly mesmerising live. i wont go into too much detail, someone who posted in this thread was supporting him.

Why, was the support act not much cop then? :D
 

Buick6

too punk to drunk
Actually he sounds like early Residents meets Daffyd Bowie's 'scary monsters' and of course the early Ween comparisons...
 

gumdrops

Well-known member
he sounds like something from a hal hartley movie in the 80s. credit might be my favourite song of his.
 

mms

sometimes
gumdrops said:
he sounds like something from a hal hartley movie in the 80s. credit might be my favourite song of his.

yeah its the explanation and the misery rolled into one
 

swears

preppy-kei
Bit late on this, but somebody sent me a few links to tracks on YouTube, and I have to say I'm impressed. I love the combination of 80s Californian MOR/AOR and the really lo-fi, dreamy production. I was convinced the vocals to one track had been sampled from an old record and heavily processed through effects. I know I'm resistant to all things guitar based (although that's only really one element in there) or "indie", but he seems to be coming from a completely different angle to say, Sebadoh or something.
 
Must admit I've developed a soft-spot for Mr. Pink, too. Although I think some of his songs are a bit weak. What's the point of seeing him live, I wonder? Without the recording process, all you get is some average if slightly quirky pop/rock songs.

But 'Trepanated Earth' is a fucking brilliant track, without doubt.
 
N

nomadologist

Guest
live

There is no. point. whatsoever. in seeing him live. I walked out of the Knitting Factory about 15 minutes in (having wanted to since he started) after someone in the audience screamed "the jokes on us" or something like that, and "Ariel Pink" screamed back "exactly." Well, if he didn't care, I didn't care.

I was so excited by some of the tracks and videos from The Doldrums, but nothing of them translates into his live "performances." There's no fuzz or haze. Just him noodling on a few keyboards that seem detuned, and talking pretty tunelessly over all of it. It's not even good in a "boy this is campy!" way. It's just not good at all.

EDIT: That said, I don't really care about music qua live performance in determining whether I like it or not. I don't think the live performance is the locus of interesting or significant about music anymore (obvs. videos contribute). So I still like The Doldrums.
 
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swears

preppy-kei
In this track, I could have sworn the vocal was a sample. There's something unsettling about it.
Another point: there's a lot said about how "sincere" he is. Perhaps, but he likes goofing around too much for me to think his music is entirely without irony.
 
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