Walk through Pink

[imomus]

You're in Tokyo, travelling on the Tokyu-Denenntoshi Line. Coldplay is not playing on your iPod. You're a more interesting person than that. You get off at Sangen-chaya Station, look around for Seiyu department store then locate the Hinomi Drugstore. This is how places are defined in Tokyo. If the signs change, if the businesses change, you're lost. At the drugstore turn right. Take the Taishido Chuo Shopping Street. On the right side near convenience store Family Mart you'll find Grapefruit Moon, and in there Ariel Pink, Rusty Santos and Ami Yoshida are making excellent noises this May 22nd. Ami makes sound only with her mouth and voice (when Sachiko M's sine waves are absent). Rusty is my sorta friend, produced Animal Collective, has a lovely song called Karasu Crow and dates a United Bamboo girl. And Ariel Pink is America's only true wonder.

"Ariel Rosenberg is sitting on the floor of his tiny, one-bedroom LA apartment," writes Adam Gnade on Exploding Plastic. "It's late-afternoon on a Sunday, and the sun is coming through the plastic blinds in lazy, filtering rays with dust motes floating in the diffused light. The four-track is plugged in on the floor in front of him. (He's sitting cross-legged, barefoot in jeans with a sleeveless gray shirt that reads 'Fuck the Whales, Save Yourself') Into the four-track, he's plugged a set of Walkman headphones jury-rigged as a mic, and he is singing his goddamn heart out. But he can't sing. At all. He's warbling, howling like a beagle, Becking out fake R&B falsettos, glubbing off-key and too slow, strumming a beat-up child-size guitar while dustbunnies and RapSnacks wrappers drift slow and lazy across the hardwoods, and the neighbors below him BANG their broom into the ceiling, shouting, 'Callate, pinche guero!' BANG! 'Tu music es tan horrible!' BANG! BANG! BANG! 'Callate! No mas!' They've had it up to here because he's been doing it every day since they moved in. Six fucking months now. Noise. Pure retardo noise.

"...Worn Copy has the feel of a tape recorded off a tape recorded off a tape that somewhere, years before, had been the B-52s' first record or maybe a Jane Fonda workout tape or maybe it was dubbed off an 8mm film of somebody's parents having sex in 1977. But it doesn't matter. Because like a game of Telephone, it's lost its original meaning and turned into something all its own. It's morphed into a new species, barely connected to its ancestors, and us scientists are losing our shit trying to figure it out. Which is a good sign. Confusion is always the first reaction to something completely new. And that's just what Ariel's done, weirded and lo-fi'd himself into creating a fresh sound, a new beast/beat, some kind of unnatural, free jazz beatbox noise folk."

You're walking in a nebulous place that resembles a library. You slip from page to page. Some of the pages have sounds attached. Suddenly you see a branch of Barnes and Noble. You go in, slip on a pair of headphones, and listen to Ariel Pink's bedroom recordings from 2002 and 2003, re-issued this month, widely reviewed and videoed, not to mention heartily recommended by Momus on his blog Click Opera as an alternative to deeply boring music.

Comments

[auto-appendix.livejournal.com]

It's beautiful stuff. Like Leif Garrett produced by Boards of Canada.

[eduard-green.livejournal.com]

I've been wondering what you thought about mainstream music for a while... "mainstream"- I wasn't sure what word to use but this seems right- a wide rushing river. I was wondering whether you disliked mainstream music or liked it but didn't mention the mainstream bands as they weren't as interesting to write about- they get loads written about them elsewhere after all.

Coldplay aren't breathtakingly original- they're influences are pretty clear, they have that standard guitar/ piano foundation, they sing about regular stuff. What is it that makes a band boring?

Or maybe I'm reading way too much into what you said and you're just saying -you- find them boring, rather than they are inherently -boring-.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

In my way of looking at these things, the phrase "inherently boring" could only ever mean "I am bored by this". The notion of something that's objectively boring is beyond science fiction. And yet there are professors of music at Princeton who suggest that works of art have "objectively great" because of their complexity, inherent proportions, the Golden Section, and so on.

[charleshatcher.livejournal.com]

Yes, I hear Mortiis is considered such an "objectively great" artist. To be pedantic, though, the Momster never claimed the music of Coldplay to be boring, simply that his character construct subscribes to more "interesting" musics (one could take any use of the term "interesting" within the confines of this blog to be a euphemism for "pretentious", a horse, of course).

And Joy Electric too!.. You'll be pushed rather hardly trying find someone to say a bad word about them! Yessum.

[(Anonymous)]

The URL for Grapefruit Moon in Sancha
is http://www.grapefruit-moon.com/

[alandriscoll.livejournal.com]

In the leaked sleevenotes from the forthcoming Go Kart Mozart album, Lawrence recommends a book called 'Crumpet All The Way' by Patsy Manning. I googled it, and the only other result was your blog. Can you shed any light? I'm a sucker for following obscure clues. I think that's probably how I discovered Ariel Pink.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I used to live with Vicky, who was Lawrence's girlfriend, and the book no doubt fell into her hands, then came with me to Paris and became one of my picks of 1996. But I'm sure she bought it for Lawrence, or got it from him. As I recall, it's a tawdry tabloid tale of a trans-sexual lorry driver in the 1970s. Probably not about to be reprinted any time soon, unless Morrissey also starts raving about it.

[petit-paradis.livejournal.com]

a new go-kart mozart album coming up! this makes my day!


erik
in a rotterdam port

[horty-pie.livejournal.com]

Love the records, but despised the live show I saw a week ago. Weirdly, it sounded almost exactly like the record, but seemed to exude a weird sort of prickishness that I never got from the record. Instead of the sweet earnestness of the records, Ariel and friends seemed to be smirking through the entire affair as though the joke was on the audience.

[la-aquarius.livejournal.com]

Sounds liks a true Angeleno to me (sweetly earnest from a distance, smarmy up close).

[bob-denver.livejournal.com]

I saw him in Minneapolis around then as well, and thought the same thing... however, I recorded an interview with him after the show that was one of the most bizarre conversations I've ever had. After all was said and done, I came to the following conclusions:

1) he's not faking it

2) he's not some omnipotent god figure that is laughing behind the scenes of all this "success". he's just a guy that does a lot of drugs and made some weird music six years ago.

3) as far as playing instruments go, nothing about the performance is ironic. they just really do suck. and they are scared as fuck to be up there.

4) Ariel is very smart... but there is a reason people so frequently refer to his music as acid fried

[dzima.livejournal.com]

Also in Sangenjaya, you forgot to mention Fujiyama (http://fujiyama.press.ne.jp/), one of the most famous noise record shop in Japan.

[(Anonymous)]

"The penis song" is much more boring than coldplay's sogs to me.

[(Anonymous)]

Coldplay's songs are very boring, but "The Penis Song" is eminently listenable. The opening line, "Buckminster Fuller, inventor of the geodesic dome" is a classic so-bad-it's-good line, like some appallingly literal 19th century poet. It's a great song!

Bulwer Lyttleton

[imomus.livejournal.com]

"Buckminster Fuller, inventor of the geodesic dome" is a classic so-bad-it's-good line, like some appallingly literal 19th century poet.

I suppose I'm a 21st century William McGonagall (http://www.taynet.co.uk/users/mcgon/default.htp).

William Topaz McGonagall.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Best middle name since Breaulove.

[martinish.livejournal.com]

The Penis Song makes me smile. I read The Guardian for middle class whinging. I listen to music to feel good about the world ouside.

Pretty in Pink.

[peripherus-max.livejournal.com]

If I worked at Other Music in NYC, I might say that there needs to be a sub-subgenre of music classification to store the output of artists such as Ariel Pink whose work acts really well as an ambient soundtrack to other art-making... walking that fine line between 'acid casualty indulgence' and early "Golden Feelings"-era Beck. I've found that there are some films that function in this way as well. David Gordon Green's "George Washington," for instance. Perhaps Jim Jarmusch's "Coffee and Cigarettes." Things that draw you in completely, and play with your expectations of time and reception. Good primers for warming up to hermetic mode and painting all night long in one's studio, I say.

Re: Pretty in Pink.

[becki1111.livejournal.com]

Other Music may not have this sub-genre section, but I certainly have created one within my own music/book/movie library at home. I couldn't agree more with your assessment...the last two sentences particularly.

Internet killed the radio star...

[(Anonymous)]

Nick, I am afraid this is one endorsement I don't go along with. I saw Ariel play in LA recently ( although he spent most of his set rolling around the floor of the stage and was not visible) and I found it embarrassing. The idea is interesting but the execution is very indulgent or maybe I can't quite see it though the eyes of a 20-something hipster. I think you have already been there and done it far more intelligently.

BTW Malcolm McClaren was on "Steve Jones Jukebox" radio show pushing his 8-bit discoveries. I feel that this scene has already peaked like the whole glitch thing and MM is desperately trying to push something that the internet disseminated 3 years ago. What do you think? The man basically invented the last 20 years of pop and is still trying to navigate its course but there are just too many "waves" ?

It seems that the hipsters here in California are for more into the low-fi folktronica ( which Ariel is a part of) and maybe the 8-bit thing is more of an East coast movement. I too am bored by current pop stock so anyone (especially in repressed America ) doing something avant garde should be applauded.

Richard

[insomnia.livejournal.com]

It kind of like what would happen if you took a young Mark E. Smith, shipped him off to a house near the beach in Santa Cruz, replaced his music collection with Beach Boy records, and fed him acid-laced Pixy Stix until something snapped, the bitterness poured out, and a pure, true, utterly daft smile popped up on his face.

It's interesting... I feel like I know the music, but I can't say that I really remember any of the songs. (I can't say that about The Fall.)

It's a strangely beautiful relic, but what would be the point of buying their second album?

[twoheaded-boy.livejournal.com]

Keep in mind that The Doldrums wasn't Ariel's "first" record. It's a collection of songs that's already six years old out of a library of home-released material that spans dozens of albums. I'm pretty sure the fellow just records all day and never finishes anything or does any post-production whatsoever. House Arrest is my personal favourite Ariel Pink album (I picked it up at his live show).

[autokrater.livejournal.com]

i must have listened to worn copy about 20 times and that was before i got it on vinyl..i now have 4 ariel pink albums,but this one is still my favorite..
the minute i begin to listen to it i feel like i am in ariel pink's bedroom..while he is recording..like hiding in his closet drinking orange soda.

[martymartini.livejournal.com]

Your new icon makes you look like the kid on the poster art for Harmony Korine`s Gummo!
By the way, is Harm still alive? He seems to have disappeared from the surface of the world.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I haven't heard from Harm in ages. Two years ago in Paris was the last time I saw him, and he said he was making a movie called "Nun's the Word" about parachuting nuns!

[(Anonymous)]

you all are making such a big deal out of nothing, like the kid is superhuman for making an amazing album that transcends culture, but it's not like he's brave or anything he's just too fucked-up to remember how inhibited he is, just like the rest of us. i think you're wasting this "revolution" stuff on a drug-induced accident.

not that the music is bad or anything.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Are you Ariel?

ARIEL PINK, right here!

[(Anonymous)]

NOPE. couldn't be. but i'm HIM.

weird, i just discovered this thread. thanks for all the kudos, momus.
you know, i even met you one time breifly in LA, backstage at your spaceland show, about 2-3 years ago. matt fishbeck introduced us, before everybody (i think it was Phiilliip, and 2 other guys + some groupies) carpooled back to his place. i didn't make it unfortunately, but...small world, innit?

Re: ARIEL PINK, right here!

[(Anonymous)]

aw... i liked having Momus think I was you.