On a
foggy Saturday night, armies of devoted Ariel Pink fans gathered at the
always
exquisite Bimbo’s 365 club to witness the iconic, Pitchfork-branded “chillwave” archduke, riding high off his big-to-do 4AD
release Before Today. The classy jazz venue was
an upscale improvement from his old haunt across town at Bottom of the
Hill, a certain
graduation of form much like his newly “refined” sound.
With the
Magic Kids and Puro Instinct (formerly Pearl Harbor) opening up the
show, Ariel
Rosenberg seemed unfazed by his new found big label fame and joyfully
contented
himself selling and signing merch at the fold out tables in the lobby.
At one
point some bro introduced Ariel to this other seasoned looking bro. He’s
like, “This
is Colm from My Bloody Valentine!” And lo behold, that was when the Pink
met
Colm Ó Cíosóig; the meeting of two titans of respective prestige of two
different times. Please place your own connective relevancies between
the two
musicians here.
Those
expecting the old shambolic Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti received the
most
well-put-together surprise. Other than lurking about the stage, ensuring
that
Tim Koh was sipping enough Heineken and performing better microphone
fellatio
than Tina Turner
herself, Ariel and the band were all about business. A jumbled order of
the
album Before Today was performed
(although they did work a great jazzed up rendition of “Hot Body Rub”
for the
opening number, with Ariel seemingly doing a sort of a scattered mic
check mid
way through), interspersing some old school “lo-fi” gems recreated with a
more
controlled chaos and cleaner instrumental resonance. Minimal tantrums,
one
crowd pleasing, crowd surfing venture for our fearless frontman, a
few huffed up stage pouts towards the end, but otherwise it was a very
tight and
together affair. Long past are the days of tape spliced histrionics from
Ariel
Rosenberg’s Thrash and Burn cassettes from ’98. This is the newer and fuller
realization of the ongoing saga of his Haunted Graffiti project.
