Photo by Geneva Garvin. Smoking is bad for you you. Give up.
 

STEPHEN SAYS: “It’s unusual and it sounds kind of silly. It’s a very distinctive sound. Very unique. The recording is good though, it sounds very clear but if they played it at the bar here tonight I don’t think many people would like it.” If you’ve ever heard an Ariel Pink record you’ll know that his music somehow sounds like everything and nothing at the same time. On Doldrums, Worn Copy and now his newie House Arrest, you’ll hear the cliches, classics and jingles from the last 40 years of rock and pop boiled up inside Pink’s feverish imagination gush out as an original and delicious lo-fi porridge that’s more addictive than free cocaine. Over the last ten years, this 27-year-old LA minstrel has recorded hundreds upon hundreds of songs in the front room of wherever he’s been staying, singing and playing guitar, bass, keyboards and his own style of “mouth drums” (kind of rock’n’roll beatboxing) into a battered 8-track. He’s totally “anti-sampling”, too, which makes his bananas bubblegum psych-rock seem even more impressive. He says: “I’m just trying to make the cool music that I listen to.”

Right now he’s living in his apartment in west LA. His mother and aunt are staying with him as well, ever since Katrina forced them out of New Orleans. At least his place is tidy and there’s always a meal being prepared. Other than that, things don’t sound too rosy for Pink.

Vice: So, Mr Prolific, the next album’s due out in the summer, right?

Ariel: I’m not sure now. I don’t have any gear. I don’t even have enough patch cables at my disposal. No computer, I don’t own one. I don’t have a guitar any more. Nothing. I’m taking donations, see what I’m saying? Lately, not to complain or sound like I’m complaining, but I am ’cos I don’t have anything, but I can’t even record my follow-up on my 8-track if I wanted.

Why, what happened?

I probably brought it on myself. I’m not very responsible with gear and never had very much of it, but I’ve let people stay at my place and things have gotten stolen.

Tell us about the famous “Ariel treatment”.

The Ariel treatment is the sound I get from my 8-track. It’s got my mouth drums on it, I can do rhythm things on the fly. I do musical beatbox and I play guitar and bass and I like to put a bunch of vocals on it. If I’m producing others, then generally people write songs they want to sound big and amazing and I can somehow satisfy that with them.

But your tracks always sound hissy and lo-fi and faraway?

I know, they sound like shit! I mean, that’s the thing, it’s mindboggling to me. My secret recording sound through my production is that it’s crap. That’s the secret.

LES PANINI
Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti’s House Arrest LP is out in February on Paw Tracks. arielpink.com