Tweak out

L.A. outfit Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti emit ADD pop and surreal rock

“You’ve reached the Ariel Pink hotline, how can I help you?”

Mr. Pink (born Ariel Rosenberg) was rolling through a Mexican desert toward Texas when the Mirror called last week. The results of the American midterm elections had yet to penetrate his van, but he correctly guessed that the Democrats had lost in a landslide.

“Yeah, well, welcome to Zimbabwe. That’s what happens when you let capitalism run amok. But it’s okay, we can always move to China, just go where the money is, if that’s the game that every­body’s playing.”

Despite his cynicism, Pink is proud to be a native of the USA’s most progressive state, California, and rejects the narrative that his city, L.A., is “plastic.” Somewhere within the network of highways, hills and strip malls, the garish Sunset Strip, the lively Latino and Korean quarters and the gloomy downtown core, Pink has found his niche, much as he has on the international stage.

The lo-fi aesthetic he developed recording hundreds of songs on bedroom cassettes impressed members of Animal Collective, who released three of his albums on their Paw Tracks label between 2004 and 2006. Thrust out onto the road, Pink either performed solo or played with a different hastily assembled backing band in each city. His unconventional, occasionally atonal singing and sloppy playing attracted some audience ire, but many responded to his warped sounds and black humour.

“It’s a little bit too ADD for most people,” he says. “I overdo everything, I have a big mouth, I sing a lot, I have too many parts. There’s too much going on for it to hit the masses in the right way.”

Among budding musicians, however, Pink is highly respected, and is often credited by critics for the rise of “chillwave” (lo-fi electro-shoegaze).

“I can hear when somebody’s heard my shit. That’s a weird feeling,” he says, humbly deferring to his patrons Animal Collective, whose influence in the indie world is ubiquitous. “I’m nowhere near that level, where there are going to be fifth generation knock-offs. I’ll just occasionally come across a little melodic signature that’s à la Pink. It’s weird to even think I have a signature at all. I feel like I’m just a pawn shop owner or a used car salesman.”

Before Today is the latest album for Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, now a proper quintet. It’s also Pink’s first album on the esteemed 4AD label, and the first time he’s recorded in a studio. A few of his older songs have been resurrected, and apart from obvious changes in arrangements and sound quality, the old ADD pop antics and surreal rock eruptions remain. Pink is happy that his bedroom-musician days are over, and doesn’t take his piece of fame, however fringe and fleeting, for granted.

“I’m the luckiest guy in the world. I’m grateful every single moment of every day of my life for this little chance to live my little dream in a way that makes me feel like I’m not living a lie and actually doing something with some sort of impact or merit.

“I’ve worked for every little bit of attention that I get and I know it won’t be there if I drop everything and stop answering my phone. But I’m happy to be known while I’m alive. Maybe I’ll be eating my words in 15 years, when the 10th wave of Ariel Pink knock-offs ruins music once and for all. Just pin the blame on me.” ■

WITH OS MUTANTES AT LE NATIONAL ON TUESDAY, NOV. 16, 9 P.M., $23.50

Short URL: http://www.montrealmirror.com/wp/?p=16156