Customer Reviews

Doldrums

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When I first heard tracks from this album on Stuart Maconie's "Freak Zone" show on BBC, I knew I had to have it. It sounded different from everything that I had been listening in the past. A fan of hardcore diy, Ariel Pink creates an unique sound based on lo-fi and classic pop. Another reviewer says that it sounds "as if a pillow was pressed against the stereo", but I think that is an essential part of Ariel's style. You see sudden bursts of beauty but you can't take it or control it. It is like if the music came, distorted, from a neighbor party to which you are not invited.

While everyone's mining the 70s and 80s for nostalgic purposes or in this self-conscious, tongue-in-cheek kind of way, it's refreshing to hear kids who grew up then just sort of expressing how that was. At the Whitney this year there was a room full of Super Mario clouds advancing across the walls with this 8-bit soundtrack over, and it made you remember how weird it felt to spend an entire afternoon just in that small square world. Ariel Pink reminds me of how MTV felt. I didn't have cable, and so I got it in glimpses from friends' older sisters, and it is in my head this jumble of synths and halated light and cheap drum loops and effete young men with lined eyes. It's like Ariel and I had the same wallpaper.

I got this record because a recent SPIN review gave it an A. This record is the kind of music you'd listen to while painting or writing poetry. This is not happy dance music, but it is so unique and different. The low-fi effect can get a little annoying, but hey, just take it as it is and get your creative juices flowing.

Songs Include : Good Kids Make Bad Grown Ups / Strange Fires / Among Dreams / For Kate I Wait / Haunted Graffiti / Gray Sunset / The Doldrums / Envelopes Another Day / The Ballad Of Bobby Pyn / Don't Think Twice Love / Until The Night Dies / Crying / Theme From Unreleased Claris Gardens / Let's Build A Camp Fire There / Young Pilot Astray

Excelente disco de Ariel pink el tipo de música perfecta para pintar o hacer arte, si te gusta Ariel Pink chequea John maus.

This album is something special. The sound quality is the sweetest. The voice. The instruments. The whole thing. When I heard this, I knew I had made a new friend.
The only thing- sometimes the songs are way too long.

i downloaded like two songs from this and i was like "these songs are great but the file must be messed up or something because it sounds all weird." then i bought it and it sounded EXACTLY the same. anyway. its weird. but the songs are good. and its gonna take years to find a song catchy enough to replace "for kate i wait" in my head. buy it, fools.

Ariel Pink is my transcontinentialist friend. Best DIY madness out there. Pop sensibility gone askew. Young pilot ashtray. This astute record is blowing down the doors, and I am grateful that the gods have finally budged, albeit inches. Bless the adventureous ears of pawtracks and carpark. Let this lunatic fringe album pull you peasants up out of the quicksand of mediocrity. We need surprises desperately. This is one. California streaming. Very highly rated, so honestly speaking. Acid bath frolicking. Click the unclickable: angelfire.com/la3/zanna/ Can you see me grimace?

Seemingly recorded under a blanket in the next room, this batch of low-fi pop requires a special ear. Like a Beegees cassette from an other dimension that David Bowie found warped in the sun.
Murky production, shambolicly executed and quirky as hell. There are some indisputably ingenious melodies here. But the songs drag on a bit too long which becomes problematic for the listener. Still, if you've purchesed all of 2004s best records (Arcade Fire, Interpol, Brian Wilson, Animal Collective, Joanna Newsome etc.) and you're still on the prowl, then check this out. For music geeks, critics, and arty weirdos, this record is recommended. But people intrigued by what they've been hearing about Ariel Pink's tape-hiss pop symphonies, would be 100 times more satisfied spending their money on Guided By Voices 1994 classic " Bee Thousand"

The Doldrums has a very muffled sound. As if a pillow was pressed against the stereo out on wich the original recording was being played, and the whole thing was rerecorded using a cassete deck. Or something like that. Anyway, it puts me off tremendously. Cause underneath that pillow there are some very beautiful songs. Ariel Pink has an ear for great melodies and his singing style (wich frequently switches to falsetto)works well. Most songs don't follow the classic song structure, but rather circle around a central melodie. The best moments on The Doldrums are however those songs wich sound like four radio stations being switched back and forth. Too bad the radio is underneath a pillow.