Tuesday, June 8, 2010

#093 Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti - Before Today

Pitchfork'd!

Sometimes I begrudge the control Pitchfork has over tastemaking these days, but god dammit. If they label something "best new music" it really is worth checking out most of the time. It's just too damn easy though, it makes you lazy.

This thing. This thing, though. I don't even know what to make of it. It sounds like its from every era ever, and no era. It is catchy as hell, textured, well produced, but unpolished. It evokes the Pillows, Brian Eno, The Zombies and old Genesis (dig that L'estat outro!) in the span of 2 songs. The textures shift, the bass lines rise, the hooks come and go, the styles flip - and it all sounds weirdly cohesive. The later raveups went over well on my first try, we'll see how they hold up. Its not an easy listen, but its not Animal Collective / Fiery Furnaces / Dirty Projectors inaccessible either. Every time it wanders off, it comes back with treats.

These guys are on Animal Collective's label, and I nominate this as the early favorite for indie press consensus when the end-of-year awards come around. Maybe this time (I'm looking at you merriweather post paviloverated) I'll agree - so far, I dig it a lot 4.5/5

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