There are a lot of reasons to reign in your expectations for Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti. If you don’t know anything about this “hipster’s hipster,” it should be stated that Ariel Pink is label-mates with indie chiefs Animal Collective and that Ariel Pink’s hermit ways are a source of inspiration for the big names in the scene to take up home recordings. If a mysterious L.A. hipster living in seclusion with an 8-track doesn’t sound like your type of party, then Before Today might not be for you, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to take away from it. Look at it this way: if the big players in the indie and experimental pop fields are watching this guy closely, there is surely some kind of lesson to be learned.

And as it promises, Before Today is an album that successfully wanders through a few decades of pop without wasting too much time. It lays out like a tour of pop music from the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s, and is a decent primer for those who are unfamiliar with the influential sounds of today’s indie scene. It focuses on re- imagining the sounds of an AM radio tuned to forgettable 70’s pop and R&B, but invites other moments of 90’s grunge, shoegaze, New York punk, psychedelic, disco, and many others introduced at liberal entrance points between and in the middle of songs.

On a certain level, one could fault the album for a lack of originality. Taking the “experimental” tag literally, you could say the album is lazy or lackluster. But the tracks themselves are seamless and well-constructed, a big credit to an artist who is known for his decades of unreleased recordings in storage. With four albums under the name and a basement full of untapped material, you can’t really say Ariel Pink doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And Before Today has a few shining tracks: the ones that stood out for me were “Bright Lit Blue Skies,” a 70’s power ballad that recreates the sound of driving a Porsche along the Pacific shore, “Round and Round,” which has sort of a white-guy R&B vibe that begs for those sunglasses to come on at night, “Butt-House Blondies,” which sounds like early Soundgarden transplanted in the Nixon era, and finally “Menopause Man,” which sounds vintage and cool in a way I’m not sure I want to ruin through analysis.

And this is likely how many people will digest the album. Mr. Pink deserves credit for lovingly-constructing a revivalist effort that honors the sound through faithful recreation instead of personalized homage. To his credit, it also steps up the quality of other APHG releases of archived dust-sponge cassettes, and the chance to make a real record in a studio didn’t smooth the fuzz (a.k.a. the best part) off the edges.

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti – Bright Lit Blue Skies

buy the track on or amazon

buy the album on or amazon

This review was written by dailybeatz contributor PJ Nutting, a Boulder, CO DJ/journalist.