Just want to let you know that when I review a record, I REVIEW a record. Sorry if it's a major essay - I believe an album deserves a thorough analysis.
To begin let me put this in perspective:
Ariel Pink spent quite a few years in musical isolation living in an apartment next to his parents in Pico-Robertson, L.A. He was prolifically producing music on a 4 track cassette recorder that, in it's naive lo fidelity meanderings and 70's AM leanings created a mystique and enough of a jolt to the music industry for people to prick up their ears. Mouth drums. Say what? It was fresh, devoid of the usual pretention involved with indie bands and just damn outright weird. At the time, it felt like this little pocket-rocket would; could go no further than being an underground indie curio.
Embedded deep in those cassettes lay the genesis for one of the most startling debut albums I have ever encountered. Now, the butterfly emerges from the tape-hiss coccoon and is born; single handedly making most indie music made in the last 5 years predictable and just downright embarrassing. Actually I think it's about time we stopped calling this kid indie, it's a bit of an insult to him.
Hello "Before Today".
On first listen, the album is perhaps a tad disjointed in its freakiness - at some point during, I felt like it had the feeling of a kitchen sink record of someone desperately throwing shit at a wall to see if it will stick. It twists and turns more than a dying snake, some songs having a multitude of feels and changes, one minute he's warbling in falsetto, the next in a deep musky baritone. To put it mildly, it was bloody hard to grasp in one go. History tells me that all my favourite albums start out like this.
By the 4th time through, I was completely eating my words.
Skipping down a rough New York alleyway in a leather jacket, fake shiv in hand with a random conga line of sci-fi nerds, failed beat poets and almost-sexy women in Thriller jackets trailing behind the self confessed "half-man, half-woman, "Before Today" truly is an album out of place in 2010. Un-paralleled contemporarily in it's un-abashed thirst for musical exploration, the thing that is so goddamn amazing about this album is that for every off-kilter track, there is a pulsing pop gem lying in wait just around the corner.
Not just OK pop gems, REAL pop gems like "Can't Hear My Eyes" that should have a place in the top 10 of any album chart. The disgusting thing is, in 2010, up against dribbling tripe like Justin Beiber, Ariel Pink will just never get there. I feel like personally delivering a copy to every baby boomer in the world. They'd get it. If you got em' a glass of wine and put it on for them, the first thing they'd say is "Man, this is a great album, I think I have this on vinyl". It sounds timeless. This could have been released in any decade and blow people's minds.
Opener "Hot Body Rub" sounds like it has come direct from Bowie's "Diamond Dogs" phase. This is the alleyway and shiv bit. Listening to this track makes me feel cool. Like I'm in a club and some hot chick walks up to talk to me, and i'm like "Nah. Fuck off. Whatever lady. Hot Body Rub....." All the while dressed in the most ridiculous red leather get up ever concocted. I think it's ballsy to open with an instrumental track, however this sets up the album brilliantly.
It really could go anywhere from this song. It encapsulates the feel of the whole record. And then it drops into "Bright lit blue skies" a beautiful swinger of a track that (personally) is effortlessly better than anything Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes or Grizzly Bear have done (*runs for cover*), because it has beautiful backing vocals that have next to no reverb on them. He doesn't have to soak it; it's already all there, and all in 2:26? Are you kidding me? It has intent, it's restrained yet fierce and effortless. Sunny pop. It sits neatly somewhere between Mama Cass's thighs and now. Exactly where, I have no idea. It's there somewhere but i can't say it sounds definitely 60's, or definitely 90's etc etc.
"Le'estat (According to the widow's maid)" is what i'm talking about. It goes from an initial hooted intro that sounds like a twee indie pastoral band to a second intro riding a ring of saturn synths to a verse of 60's Yardbirds beat then into a chorus of pure Bolan with delicious "Yeahs" then..........early Genesis, Vangelis, Ha! It's a complete journey. However, never once does it sound forced, contrived or wrong. This is prog-pop. A contained musical journey that is seamless in execution. Liquid in it's transition. After 4 listens this track transforms from a confusing puzzle to a beautiful tapestry. *POP*.......CHEER OOOPP!
"Fright Night (Nevermore)" is a track that makes Empire Of The Sun sound like Justin Beiber. The start of the "Thriller" trilogy as I've coined the ensuing 3 tracks. In fact, it sounds like, yep, Ariel dancing down a dark alleyway with a walkman on, red leather pants, bubblegum popping; he gets stopped by a crew of leather dudes that jump out from behind some trash cans, knives in hand. They meet. It smells like violence. Just when you think poor Ariel is gonna get a shiv in the head, everyone starts dancing, chicks in silver stilettos abseil down the facade of the buildings either side, and the rest is.....awesome.
"Round and Round" sounds quite like the second part of "Fright Night". Restrained, it sounds like Boney M duetting with Todd Rundgren. And that's only up until 1:48 when Ariel answers the phone. Then it ballooooooooons into such a classic soft rock track that I'm ringing Timelife to check why it wasn't present on my "Best Of Soft Rock comps". I've been jipped. I particularly love the quick guitar solo.
The last of the "Thriller" trio of songs, "Beverly Kills" is a killer luminescent pop gem. The chorus was stuck in my head for a week. It would pop up in every type of circumstance. I'd be serving someone a latte at work and mutter "can't stop the press". This surely is what pop(ular) music is about? It has to wedge. if it doesn't wedge in your head it has failed. This doesn't. Ever. He's taken that 80's/70's sound and made it his own. My hat is doffed.
From here we enter the scuzzed out world of "Butt-House Blondies". Cool title. Cool track. I was about to say that it's musically the least adventurous but then while i'm listening to it now - who am I kidding? The apocalyptic intro completely doesn't fit with the rest of the record but then kinda does in a weird way. The verses would make Connan Mockasin think twice. Psych-Macheeky. Segues wickedly into.....
"Little Wig". A complete pysch nut-out which sounds simultaneously like a bunch of rough rednecks smashing cans of beer around a Dodge Charger then into a super-charged descending Supergrass vocal. Somehow he manages to make a descending piano motif work through this. How the hell he did so??????
I've already big-upped "Can't Hear My Eyes" so straight into "Reminiscences". Ariel sitting on Stevie Wonder's lap with a glass of wine. Bowie's "Low" synths hum and whir in the background. Aaron González's bass like a sexy elastic band rising and falling. Stefan González's drums like psuedo-reggae hotness. Somehow this track sounds fantastic when it could easily sound dead naff and the reason is the winding synth that holds the whole track together like glue, it's sinewy fingers writhing around and caressing the feel and timing of the other instruments.
"Menopause Man". The question is, what came first, "Steamworks" by The Presets, or this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqxco3QoWsc&feature=related. Eeerily similar. The key to this tracks heart is that it is so simple yet so complex. Listening to the feel of the verse is completely at odds with the chorus - especially after the time-changing refrain before and during the chorus, but again, Ariel makes it work, makes it interesting. I'm still hearing new shit in this song 14 listens on. The ending still sounds like he's grown bored of the whole track and is deliberately trying to sabotage it - on to the next! I wonder if Ariel has a short attention span? I mean, it would explain such a diverse record. But maybe he's just completely in tune with the shit that's going on in his head?
"Revolution's a lie". The end of the record. Shit. I love the way that "Before Today" continuously morphs, more so towards the end of the record. At about "Menopause Man" it really feels to me like a year later in Ariel's world. He could have easily made a whole album that sounds like "Beverly Kills" but the fact that he hasn't just adds to the three-dimensionality of this record. How do i describe this song? It sticks out but then it doesn't. It's a perfect point on the record where one takes stock on the 11 tracks that have come before. Am I listening to the same record? A bag of sweets. Pick your fave, but you know that all of them taste great. I feel excited to find out what the next 15 tracks are going to sound like, then am bitterly disappointed when I realise it's the last track. Love it when it starts to wig out at 3:00, kept together by a great bassline that just repeats repeats repeats. Has a great urgency. Tasty. Actually goes quite nicely back into "Hot Body Rub" if you loop the whole record.
While this record ain't gonna be for everybody, if you give this LP some love it will, in turn, love you back. Like I said before, it was only on the 4th listen that it started to come together and really hit me; really become apparent that what we have here is a spectacularly important record for 2010. In a time of cheeseburgers, here comes a lo-fi delicious degustation that everyone can afford; at the very least, if you hate the album after 4 listens at least credit the man with trying to push the scope of music from the inane to the cosmic.
Personally I can't wait to see where Ariel goes from here. The possibilities are plentiful. He could dive straight back into home recordings and 'cult curio' status, he could maintain this place and continue to create thought provoking material, or he could be picked up by a major label, made to churn out soft rock classics that will sell millions in the Mid West. Who knows?
I'm waiting with very pricked ears.
