Ariel Pink's Haunted Grafitti - Menopause Man (2010)
I'm deleting instagram. It has become way too toxic particularly in the dysphoric state I'm in. It has to go. Anyway at one stage during the lockdowns I started doing music blog type things on there that never transferred to this here blog, so I thought I'd selvage some things before I obliterate the fucking thing.
"2010: The last official year of hypnagogia. What a finale. The last great year in music? You can argue amongst yourselves whether these albums belong here or not.
Hypnagogia was a fairly amorphous term. It encompassed radio pop, tv noise, psych, industrial gunk, cosmic synth, obsolete genres like goth, new age, glam, dubby post-punk, electro-pop, ethnological forgeries & quirky one hit wonder new wave, Lo-fi tape hiss, ambient, woozy disco, 80s Soundtracks, pop culture detritus & a whole lot more sonic debris so long as it was all shrouded in a trippy sonic hypnagogic fog.
These aren’t ranked except for the first one as it was a game changer. Almighty leader Ariel Pink burnt off the hypnagogic fog & went spectacularly hi-fi to reveal massive glorious pop anthems worthy of FM radio’s airwaves.
1. Ariel Pink - Before Today
2. Rangers - Suburban Tours
3. Sun Araw - On Patrol
4. James Ferraro -Nightdolls With Hairspray
5. Outer Limits Recordings - Foxy Baby
6. Oneohtrix Point Never - Returnal
7. Emeralds - Does It Look Like I’m Here
8. Dylan Ettinger - New Age Outlaws
9. LA Vampires & Zola Jesus - Meet
10. Motion Sickness Of Time Travel - Seeping Through The Veil Of The Unconscious"
[timspacedebris Instagram - 13/7/20]
*I know, is this worth saving? Hardly...but hey instagram was all about the pictures of the album covers and I guess that's still an exceptional lil' list of good recordings though.
**Listening back to Before Today it really wasn't spectacularly Hi-Fi like I claimed, more like just a notch above his usual lo-fi. But it's th0se 4AD sessions videos that sounded most epic sound-wise. I think there was another four tunes in the set but they seem to have been scrubbed from the net...surprise surprise.
Outer Limits Recordings - Smoke Opera (2010)
This is classic hypnogogia. Hypnotic lo-fi woozy glam synth fuzz smeared with trademark haze & fog. Sadly Outer Limits Recordings aka Sam Meringue died a few years back when he was only 31 years old.
Oneohtrix Point Never - Returnal (2010)
I forgot how much I loved this at the time. This is more on the neo cosmic drone tip rather than the pop hypnogogic of the the likes of Ferraro's Night Dolls With Hairspray. It was like there was a glimmer of hope for music and society back then. Sure Returnal was in the tradition of great 60s, 70s & 90s innovative music but you felt that at some point they might go beyond the exquisite retro-pastiche motifs of Returnal and Rifts. However OPN kinda annoyed me with their following records so I dunno if they ever got there. Perhaps don't start with the uncharacteristic noise track that opens the album, skip to track 4 which is the title track but hey it's all good.
*I might come back to the other records in the top ten tomorrow...
I was digging out some hypnagogia recently - Dolphins into the Future, Orphan Fairytale .... Funny how it's come around that such an overtly nostalgia-suffused sound could be a locus of nostalgia in itself.
ReplyDeleteAlongside the Ariel contrails of genius, the one that really seems outstanding and enduring from that whole era is your #2 - Rangers, Suburban Tours. He's done other excellent stuff since, but there's just something about that record, it taps into something magical. Every few years I rediscover the album and play it over and over.