Album Reviews

Mexican Summer

Three years on from his widely-acclaimed album Pom Pom, LA’s outspoken, prodigal DIY singer and songwriter Ariel Pink is back with a glittering new album. His eleventh LP overall and his first for Brooklyn’s zeitgeist imprint, Mexican Summer, the new record sees the innovative artist returning to more of the home-spun, bedroom lo-fi sounds that first announced his uncompromising, subversive and singular style to enlightened circles. Inspired by the life of Bobby Jameson, an LA cult figure who was on the verge of popularity in the ’60s but never broke through, instead facing issues with drugs and attempted suicide, this record finds Pink returning to basics and spinning plenty of his idiosyncratic charm. Melting together psych pop, spun-out folk, oddball electronica, sordid disco, synth-punk and machine rock, he creates a dazzling soundscape that sparkles with vivid colour and eccentric charisma. Retro synths collide with sleazy beats, hazy layers of reverb, vocal manipulations, kaleidoscopic melodies and woozy guitars as Pink creates an album that feels as timeless as it is exciting and capricious. The result is a record that feels totally undiluted, uncompromised and entirely representative of the artist himself – this is concentrated Ariel Pink at his unmistakeable and inimitable best. A wild and untamed performance from start to finish, Dedicated to Bobby Jameson is indicative of the authentic and creative voice that has enabled Ariel Pink to become the enormously influential force that he is today. Tom Jones ADD THESE TO YOUR PLAYLIST: Feel Like Heaven, Time to Live, Acting|

9/10