One Track Mind

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If you have never happened to come across Ariel Pink‘s music, you are in for a strange, hallucinogenic ride. The Los Angeles musician’s compositions are something akin to music history acid trips, spazzing their way through passages inspired by everything from Bread and Fleetwood Mac to the lo-fi heroes of the 1990s college scene. His approach may be uncanny but one thing about Pink’s compositions has always been abundantly clear: he is a voracious consumer and lover of all sorts of genres and styles. Rather than directly reconstitute pop past (a la Girl Talk, for instance), Pink prefers to raise those same specters with musical allusions, capturing the spirit without copping a lick. As a result, his work can be absolutely transfixing or unequivocally unlistenable–sometimes achieving both within the same song.

After eight long-players on smaller indie imprints, Ariel Pink and his band (which has toured with Chairlift and Vivian Girls, and played Coachella) are prepping their first record for 4AD. Before Today will make its debut on June 8th and has the distinction of being the first Pink album to boast a noticeably more hi-fi production value. It is a move which suits the band well, elevating their hissy, schizophrenic past outings to a heightened level of clarity. If anything, it makes it easier to appreciate the impressive layering and convoluted structure of a track like “Round and Round,” which is always on the go, building up beautiful melodies and then tearing them down from the inside.

This implosive, restless quality will undoubtedly turn off a great many listeners–that’s always been a part of the Ariel Pink game. For those willing to take the plunge, though, the rewards are immense. If he thought it exciting, Ariel Pink would be penning a vast chunk of today’s Top 40 hits; thankfully for us, he has his gifted eyes on more ambitious and perplexing sights.