As far as I’m concerned, there exists only two explanations for Ariel Pink and his music: interdimensional teleportation, and drugs. While the second option seems more likely given our current lack of any such devices, Ariel Pink is such a fascinating oddity that I would almost be inclined to think otherwise (although even if he is from another dimension, there exists no doubt in my mind that he would be just as fucked up on their drugs as he is on ours). I say this because while Pink’s music is most assuredly weird, it exists so eerily close to what we would once consider ‘pop music’ that you can’t help but imagine these songs being absolute hits in some other world that’s very much like our own.

Throughout his decade long tenure as a solo artist and past few years with his band, Pink has been classified as an ‘outsider musician’; a label I don’t feel is very fair to the man and his work. While his recording methods are unconventional, especially earlier in his career, his approach to songwriting has always been relatively straightforward, drawing inspiration from the Great American Songbook of the 50’s, 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. Before Today, Pink’s first album with his band Haunted Graffiti in tow, seemed like an attempt to ditch the ‘outsider’ categorization and break out into the underground scene (there’s a process to these things). However, slick album centerpiece “Round and Round” aside, Before Today was still very much rooted in the lo-fi proto-pop of Pink’s earlier days. The album managed to receive a lot of attention all the same, and ended up on many critics end of year best-of lists. Yet even those who loved the record were skeptical; the success of Before Today almost seemed like an accidental miracle, and many questioned whether or not Pink would be able to live up to the hype he had generated for himself. After videos of on stage breakdowns and rumors of a split had surfaced, it seemed Pink was destined to fade back into obscurity almost as quickly as he had emerged from it.

And then Mature Themes leaked. Pink has stated in interviews that this album was ‘the album he wanted to make’ when writing Before Today, and that he just didn’t have the resources at the time to do so. Listening to Mature Themes, you can hear exactly what he means by this. Before Today seems almost amateurish (see what I did there?) compared to this behemoth of an album. Every aspect of his music that Pink sought to relay to his audience with Before Today has been expanded upon tenfold; the hooks are catchier, the dichotomy between glossy production and lo-fi grit is more pronounced and everything just seems so much more absurd. If you couldn’t handle Before Today, don’t even bother with this album. But if you’re like myself and you found yourself reveling in the completely ridiculous nature of Pink’s music, you will not be disappointed.

 

The album starts off with two tracks that almost act as an osmotic membrane to the rest of the album. Pink lays out his intentions to completely fuck with your head mercilessly with “Kinski Assassin” and “Is This The Best Spot?”, the latter of which begins with a chant of “G-spot…H-bomb, let’s go!” which quickly leads into a chorus where Pink urges you to “step into my time warp”. Pink’s ability to string words that make sense together into phrases that simply don’t furthers my theory of his alternate dimension origins; despite the fact that what he’s saying appears to be nonsensical, he always says it with such conviction that you feel like he means it. Any sane, rational person, upon hearing these tracks, would immediately turn off his or her stereo and begin feverishly reading the nearest newspaper in order to ground themselves back into reality. With these silly types of people filtered out by these tracks, the rest of us crazy folk who continue along with the album are immediately rewarded by the album’s poppiest moments, the title track and “Only In My Dreams”. Mature Themes may not have an obvious standout point like “Round and Round” was on Before Today, but if it did, it would definitely be these two songs. “Mature Themes” could almost pass as a ballad (in a very Pinkian way) and “Only In My Dreams” is a delicious slice of 50’s-esque pop that I’ve honestly probably listened to close to a hundred times by now. From there, the album takes a murkier turn, “Driftwood” and “Early Birds of Babylon”  playing into a sort of psychadelic metal trip that only drugs from another universe could send you on. One of the biggest improvements between this album and its predecessor is the songwriting ability. Pink has stated that this was a much more collaborative effort than Before Today, and the broad array of influences from each member of the band results in an extremely diverse album that covers an insane amount of ground while still sounding cohesive. Whether it be a muddy ode to schnitzel, a swinging disco track dedicated to Pink’s sex addiction or the droning tripfest that is “Nostradamus & Me”, it is all very distinctly Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti, a feat that is very impressive given the breadth of this album. Every song sounds different, and even the filler tracks (if you could even call them that) have a captivating aspect to them.

 

The last track on the album “Baby” is a cover of a lost soul track from an era long before our own. For this song, and this song alone, all of the tongue-in-cheek pretense seems to disappear and the band puts a straight face on, as if realizing for the first time that everyone had been watching them goof off this entire time. Although this song is a cover, its an incredibly powerful performance that has Pink putting in vocal work that I’m sure no one was convinced he’d be able to pull off. But pull it off he does, and with such confidence that for those four minutes or so, the notion that Pink exists as a mega star in some alternative dimension doesn’t seem that absurd after all.