On The Beach In The Ocean

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti “Only In My Dreams”

Ariel Pink approaches music like an art forger, mimicking precise details in composition and style as well as aura and surface texture. He’s hardly alone in his knack for pastiche, but his work is often captivating because there’s a specific ineffable quality in the sound of his recordings – it all sounds as if it’s coming from a particular time and place, though it’s hard to say where or when it could be. It’s like he’s making all this music that belongs on the same found cassette tape, or something like a Sublime Frequencies compilation. A lot of people have written guitar parts like the Byrds-like guitar lead in “Only In My Dreams,” but Pink makes it sound totally alien and out of time.

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