Ariel Pink brings lo-fi psychedelia to Union Transfer
When you're known for making lo-fi music, the only place left to go is, uh, higher-fi. That's the position Ariel Pink found himself in when he and his backing outfit, Haunted Graffiti, hit Union Transfer on Tuesday.
When you're known for making lo-fi music, the only place left to go is, uh, higher-fi. That's the position Ariel Pink found himself in when he and his backing outfit, Haunted Graffiti, hit Union Transfer on Tuesday.
Since the early 2000s, Pink has mixed lo-fidelity murk with bubblegum, synth-pop, freak-folk, and complexly harmonic, Californian pastoral psychedelia. That flower-powered sound would have made the late Kim Fowley proud. In fact, Pink's recent album, Pom Pom, features oddities co-penned with Fowley, garage-and-glam rock's most eccentric huckster. At Union Transfer, the band did those tracks with love, including the surf-rock of "Nude Beach a Go-Go," with its pummeling rhythms, and the nattering bubblegum of "Plastic Raincoats in the Pig Parade." It was a passing of the torch from one weirdo to another.
Hair tied into a pineapple sprout, complaining about a nonspecific malaise ("Aren't you sick all year 'round with this freezing cold?"), Pink was magically odd. His low, theatrical vocals were fed through more echo and reverb than a dub producer, an effect that made the messily melancholic "Dayzed Inn Daydreams" spookier and the icily elegiac "Picture Me Gone" sadder still.
Pink's effects-laden warble and sinister lyrics (for example, "Lipstick" and its murderous "I'm a possum" refrain) had to fight through all manner of fuzzy pastiche. That made the show all the more surreal, like Andrew W.K. doing a high-school version of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
"Four Shadows" and "Not Enough Violence" raced by in a rush of whammy-bar-heavy synth-pop, complete with cartoony harmonies, Linn drums, and the opening riff from Led Zeppelin's "Dazed and Confused." "Goth Bomb" was all fury: glossy, rocking guitars, pounding drums, and Pink's nyah-nyah vocals, more frenetic as they reached the finish. After lewd introductions came a lewder "Black Ballerina," with synths, yowling vocals, and Zappaesque choral twists. Little of this prepared listeners for the harmonic beauty and hippy vibe of "Life in L.A.," with its gently strummed acoustic guitars and electric saxophones. Sure, it wound up in a messy cacophony of noise and hurt feelings, but Ariel Pink listeners wouldn't want it any other way.