Analysis of Ariel Pinks Haunted Graffiti 5 House Arrest
The first time I read about is Ariel Pink was a brief article in a magazine describing a prolific indie cult figure who records all of his strange and almost un-listenable albums at home on now ancient 8-track cassette recording equipment. I was intrigued, to say the least, which was only the first step in finding more out about an artist. About a year later, I read on a record shop website that an album from his project, Haunted Graffiti, named House Arrest was being re-released and getting considerable buzz. I remembered the article I had read about him and was pretty determined to buy House Arrest, despite the fact that I was unfamiliar with his music at all. The short comment next to the release date on the website read, Let your freak flag fly! That was enough to persuade me to not only buy the album, but find out as much about this Ariel Pink guy as possible.
Ariel Pink is an intriguing figure. When you look at his discography, there is a laundry list of albums unreleased that precede the Haunted Graffiti project that I can assume are sitting around in his house on 8-track cassettes waiting to found posthumously and released in tribute to crazy music genius. Of the Haunted Graffiti collection, only Doldrums, number 2, House Arrest, number 5, Loverboy, number 6, and Worn Copy, number 8, have been released on Paw Tracks Records owned by the elusive Animal Collective. That leads me to wonder, Where are the missing releases in the project and am I missing essential holes in the story of Haunted Graffiti? Upon purchase of House Arrest I found that it was originally released with Loverboy on a different label. There was something about House Arrest that deserved its own separate attention which was only reinforced by the buzz around its rerelease.
House Arrest, recorded in 2002, is easily Ariel Pinks most accessible album, which stands as an understatement. The low fidelity recording conditions surround the album in a cloud of mystery over 10 songs of infectious 70s AM radio pop. The music, out of context and unexamined would certainly be viable as muzac, playing in an elevator of Holiday Inn in 1996 or especially as a classic radio station playing the best of the seventies in a dentists office lobby, except the dentist never comes and the music becomes creepier and creepier the more you pay attention.