Magnetic Melty Tape Noise Pop?
posted 8 December 2007, 17:22 by Mike
I don’t understand Ariel Pink. I don’t get Ariel Pink… but sometimes I enjoy things he does it seems. I can’t decide whether it’s a horrifically superficial new incarnation of 80s-inspired dadaist nonsense, or a brilliantly superficial new incarnation of 80s-inspired dadaist nonsense. From the looks of it, Ariel intends it to be both. If that’s the case then I’m equally unsure whether that is horrific or brilliant. Horrific most of the time, but also interesting.
Background info? Of the top of my head: he was discovered by Animal Collective after receiving a tape from him at a show. He had been making music for quite a while, using a 4 track tape recorder and very intentionally lo-fi techniques, such as beat boxing his percussive tracks. The music is messily structured and seemingly… broken. Like listening to a cassette tape that’s been sitting in a car’s glove box for 20 years. Distant and fuzzy, and always implacably reminiscent of something you’ve heard before.
The videos are a thing unto themselves. Here are a couple:
Take them as you wish (or don’t). I generally don’t think I like it, but I do like the feel and idea of it, if that makes sense. Wikipedia calls his music “hauntology,” what seems to be a dubiously legitimate genre of music with ties to some theory by Derrida. As Wikipedia puts it, “[hauntology] suggests that the present exists only with respect to the past, and that society after the end of history will begin to orient itself towards ideas and aesthetics that are thought of as rustic, bizarre or ‘old-timey’; that is, towards the ‘ghost’ of the past.” Which sounds relevant to alot of things happening today, though, of course, not everything.
In terms of retro-feeling music I’m liking Wizardzz alot more.
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And now, a poem from the Crypt Keeper. coo-coo coo-coo- coo-coo- KO KO