Who does Ariel Pink think he is? This guy, a lo-fi pop songsmith who’s indulged in a very unhealthy amount of psychotropic substances, is going on tour soon and says he’s inviting any local band in town to back him up, sans practice save an hour or so before the actual gig. It’s been reported that before this experiment Pink’s shows were already tenuous and ramshackle. How is this going to help present the rough sketches of songs on his records?

Pink’s songs, appearing on any and every one of his records, are dirty and mixed weird, stop and start at any given minute like prog that doesn’t know how to transition, but still show the strange genius of 70’s and 80’s radio pop. He’s not interested in showing off a mastery he’s worked out behind the scenes. Doing something like channeling these songs through a batch of unpracticed musicians will again test his experiment of examining art in an embryonic state. It should be interesting to see how different musicians with different ideas try to funnel the same ideas out.