Anti-fi
Yes, imagine an alternative universe in which alternative pop was still a possibility. Imagine, that is, a world in which there was no Coldplay, Athlete, Elbow and other priests of anthemic pathos...
That's where Ariel Pink comes from. I went to the show at Matt's behest having heard nothing, armed only with Simon's description of the band as 'uncanny, oneiric' and what people had said on this thread. Having a bill of three acts, all of whom belonged to this warped genre (and all of whom, as Matt said, played in Ariel Pink's band) was a stroke of genius, since it made you feel that this Lynchesque sound - peculiar, pre-set driven, Seeds-like psych-punk with all edges subtracted by a mix that wasn't so much muddy as deliberately muddied - was nothing out of the of the ordinary. (The garage punk thing is one thing that connects AP with the early Cabs, actually, to follow on from Matt's observation). But it is precisely this ease with strangeness that makes AP so UNeasy, uncanny (and why those more determined to sell themselves as 'weird' usually fail to do so).
The miasmatic mix made it seem like there was a wall of sound between you and the act, so that it was exactly as if they were trying to copy that 'fuzzy cassette sound' Soupstain talks about upthread. Their pursuit of that C90 fuzz and fug - like they were trying, live, to simulate a poor quality recording of themselves playing live - was what produces both the oneiric and the sublime qualities of their sound. It is not make do and mend lo-fi so much as ANTI-FI, a deliberate fogging of the digitally hyper-clean, with the result that what you are hearing is as much doubt and speculation as anything else. The force of the volume gave the sound a desubstantialised physicality, like <i>Loveless</i>-era MBV playing Suicide cover-versions. As with <i>Loveless</i>, you feel that as you are hearing the songs you are forgetting them AND that what you are hearing is a remembered dream.
Ariel looked like a twelve-year old Mickey Rourke doing an Alan Vega impression, and the sheer amount of delay on his vocals reinforced the overall sense of fracture and dislocation. Each new phrase only added to the wreathes and wraiths of echo that were already shrouding the mix, so that the movements of his mouth bore little relation to the sounds that we were hearing - like he was an actor in a badly dubbed film.
Great stuff.