Ariel Pink first flashed across my radar maybe in 2003? A video on the defunct New York Noise (a tear falls): low budget, washed images of a live band, as inchoate as their impressionistic song, less a tune than pulses of noise, as if the Partridge Family had been embedded in a warped, chip-damaged Atari 2600 console.
And then I forgot about him. Until some years later, maybe in New York Noise's final year, I saw the vid for "Politely Declined," a lovely teenage symphony to .... maybe psychotic breaks, stalking, and opiates.
Talking about his new rekkid "Mature Themes" in this past Sunday's NY Times, Pink states "If people are into it, they're weirder than I am." I'm weirder than Ariel Pink. I'm not even done with his previous album yet, and between that one and this one he probably made four more unreleased records' worth of material.
Today P-crack gave "Mature Themes" a best new stamp. Maybe, but this record isn't for mass consumption, in a good way. To wit: super-great single "Only in My Dreams" is only on the record in order to fool the straight-laced toward the real trip. Can't wait til some Wilco-lovin' or Rick Ross-lovin' Pitchfarters barf when their cloud unspools "Pink Slime" or "Symphony of the Nymph." When he sings "shemales hopped up on meth" on the sweet, bouncy "Kinski Assassin."
Although I'm sure he isn't serious, Pink sounds serious, which is all the funnier, probably, to him. It is to me. I can't wait til someone mistakenly recommends "Mature Themes" to their suburban friends who prize an ability to dig Adele, and Pink starts singing about G-spots ("Is This the Best Spot?"). No, this is not the album for Those People, although it'll be great if, somehow, it makes it there.