Interesting Results: Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti

By Phil Hunt
Contributing Writer

Ariel Pink is one of those artists that are hard to define.

Correction. On the surface, he seems easy enough to define. There are many writings out there that seem to do it. They pique the curiosity and motivate you enough to attend a show – or at the very least get you to his Myspace page. This writing is one of them. At least it hopes to be.

I’d never heard about Ariel Pink before internet radio became personalized. The song “Interesting Results” cropped up a few years ago when I entered “Guided By Voices” in the little “Artist” field on Last.fm (a web radio/music recommendation service similar to Pandora). Boom. I bought his album, “Worn Copy,” immediately, soon followed by “House Arrest” and “Underground.”

On the surface, the Guided By Voices comparison gives you a pretty good idea of what you’re in for. Like GBV’s Robert Pollard, Ariel Pink is prolific. His instinct for catchy hooks and an affinity for strange noise make for an apt comparison.

But the more you listen, categorization, generalization and definition are elusive. Take the financials out of the picture and Ariel Pink seems to have at least as much in common with, say, Pink Floyd, as he does with GBV. As well as Frank Zappa. And the Cure. Even Hall & Oates, in a kind of twisted way, informs the work of Ariel Pink.

I don’t like most of those artists, but I really like Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti.

Pink spent his formative years in his apartment making 8-track recordings – making up all arrangements, playing the instruments, and recording the percussion parts with his own mouth. He released these crude-but-fascinating, off-center pop recordings as the “Haunted Graffiti Series” of albums.

The sounds on those records varied from song to song – recalling 80s pop, radio jingles, cavernous garage rock, penetrating synth, lyrics that sounded both pained and goofy at the same time with falsetto vocal accents. As strange as it sounds, the songs are likeable, memorable and sound like way more than the sum of their parts. These albums became an underground sensation of sorts, and Pink started playing live. His band also became Haunted Graffiti.

He befriended the folks in Animal Collective, who released some of his initial recordings. Legendary home-recording pioneer R. Stevie Moore became a friend and collaborator. You can still visit a fan page that Moore created for Pink on Angelfire.com.

Past collaborators have gone on to form their own (awesome) musical projects, such as the manic philosopher/political scientist from Minnesota and Hawaii, John Maus, who played in Haunted Graffiti at one time. Christopher Owens, of the band Girls, did a stint with a band called Holy Shit – of which Pink was a member.

For his latest album, Pink signed his first proper recording contract with the renowned independent powerhouse 4AD. The result, “Before Today,” is his first “studio” album. While it’s a departure from his bedroom recording method, the studio suits him well. The larger, cleaner sound is understated, but it drags his song craft out of the stuffy apartment and into the sunlight, killing damp, dark organisms in the corners and cracks, and sending what remains full throttle into the wind.

My request for an interview with Ariel Pink wasn’t ignored, but never came to fruition. No matter. I honestly don’t care much for talking with musicians I enjoy – no offense to Ariel Pink. It’s just that when I was growing up, underground artists were almost completelyinaccessible apart from the records they made. The internet was not much help at the time.

Today it’s a free-for-all. There’s less mystery. Plus, there’s a lot out there already that can inform those ideas. In fact, when Ariel Pink does an interview, he does a good job of adding to the mystery, rather than detracting from it.

His music leads you to believe he occupies his own world. But if you look at what he has to say about music and the world in general in the media, he seems self-aware, very intelligent. His provocative statements are tempered with more reason than you’d expect; it’s an odd pairing of insanity and pragmatism. He’s expressed a desire and belief that a future in science, law and politics awaits when he’s finished with music. He sounds both jaded with music and completely in love with it.

But to this day, that first song I heard, “Interesting Results,” informs my idea of Ariel Pink more than anything else. He sings: “Every time I sit down and try I get interesting results.”

That says it all, really. Love him or hate him, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti will be interesting.

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If You Go

What: Ariel Pink, OK Fox, Binge Bot
Where: The Aquarium
When: Mon, Sept 20, 10pm
Info: 701.235.5913