Ariel Pink - Ready For Feedback

To quote the Comic Book Guy, ‘loneliness and cheeseburgers are a dangerous mix’. Well, the same might be said of tape recorders and eight-tracks. Especially if you’re Ariel Marcus Rosenberg, AKA Ariel Pink. Ariel has spent the better part of the last fifteen years famously and obsessively compiling a seemingly endless catalogue of reconstituted pop, 60s surfer tunes, advertising jingles, stadium anthems and 80s cheese, integrating them all into a style that might be thought of as Prom Queen meets Horror Show.


But for every critic repulsed by the lo-fi imperfection and seeming amateurishness of Pink’s analogue recordings, another has recognised that the sheer mediocrity of the sound quality – and it is bad, at times almost unlistenably so – is as much of the point as is the mishmash of genre that makes up the songs themselves. Pink has chosen to scrape away the studio polish of disposable product, to expose a vehicle capable of bearing his wounded, abject voice.

“I cut my teeth early on sub-par equipment,” he tells me, with an almost audible shrug. “It wasn’t so much being attracted to the sound of shittiness per se … It was a means to an end. [It was about] making something sound good out of it, rather than blaming the lack of quality on the lack of gear.”


The outsider mystique that grew up around his wretched loner shtick, as well as the undeniable quality of the songs, yielded paydirt eventually. A union with Animal Collective’s Paw Tracks back in 2004 resulted in the release of selected material that had previously only existed on CD-Rs. Subsequent releases such as The Doldrums (2004) or Scared Famous (2007) have simply mined the back-catalogue however, the music carrying no sense of growth or progression. Rather, it expresses a bizarre time-warped sense of stasis, as well as a loneliness so hyper-aware of itself that its bruised misery is immediately erased by the self-reflexive piss-taking that’s present in its very articulation.

That was then though and this is now – for Ariel Pink has turned a corner. Last year’s sprawling double-disk opus Grandes Exitos marked the end of his DIY era. “Music is a means to an end y’know,” he says. “You should make your art and purge those demons that you so desperately need to exorcise. I’m over that stage of my life where I’m just a heart bleeding onto a tape deck. I’m very anxious to get some sort of feedback, some reflection on what I was doing. I’ve got a whole different set of circumstances now.”

Among other things, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti is no longer simply a moniker for the artist’s bedroom project. It’s a full band now, feathers and all. Previous attempts at performing his music solo produced less than stellar results (“I think it came off pretty bad”, he admits), but Pink is quick to staunch any doubts regarding the group’s ability. “Who says that it’s impossible to do this stuff live? All we need is commitment, people to be on the same page.

“The live part is what I have to do in order to continue playing my music. Otherwise I’d need to get a job and continue to make a bunch of tapes in my bedroom. It’s [been] this total lesson in how to handle one’s affairs.” He laughs, adding, “I’m a lot more of a social butterfly; I like the attention, too.”

Other positive life steps have included being signed last year to UK indie label 4AD; any former recalcitrance towards participating in the monster that is the modern music industry eventually gave way to the desire to reach an audience. “It was no secret; we needed to get signed to a real label,” he says. “I’ve made every mistake in the book in the last five years, and I’ve continued to, I’m a slow learner … but I’m lucky, I feel like I’m chasing heights. The longer I do it, the more I feel I’m in control of my craft. It’s a new trajectory in my life that I’m really into at the moment; it’s very different.”

Before Today is the first album of this new period. At an even twelve tracks, it is easily Pink’s most coherent and accessible statement to date. Songs like ‘Fright Night (Nevermore)’, first single ‘Round And Round’ or the wonderfully Billie Jean referencing ‘Menopause Man’ benefit from digital production with a rich day-glo sound, while retaining the knowing wink and disruptive sexual overtones of his previous work.

Pink seems reconciled with the excesses of what he obviously sees as a previous incarnation – there is a clear sense of him having passed through the crucible, arriving on the other side by and large intact, and with a renewed thirst to create. “At the risk of being a cartoon of myself, I do like to lead the life that I want to lead, and kind of lead by example. I really feel like there’s no reason to be just a stupid entertainer for the sheeple… just the heroin for the masses – we don’t need anymore of that.”

So what lies ahead? “Same thing only better, hopefully. I don’t want to punish the crowd or chastise humanity or whatever … Whatever I’ve already laid the groundwork for – it’s all tacky already. My job is not anywhere near done.”


First published in The Brag, Iss. 365, June 7th 2010