Ariel Pink's Dallas Connection

Some of our readers may have noticed the highly complimentary "Best New Music" review of Ariel Pink's latest record on Pitchfork this week, and if you've been keeping tabs on his career over the past several years, you might find the review pretty surprising given Pitchfork's luke-warm response to almost everything else the guy's ever done. Of course, it's just all too convenient that Pitchfork has finally come around to Ariel Pink now that he seems to be responsible for many of underground pop music's most important trends over the past couple of years, but I suppose such behavior is pretty typical of the site these days.

The reason any of this matters to us, however, is that there's a local connection-- the excellent first track on the new album, "Hot Body Rub," was recorded by Ariel Pink in Dallas with a group called Added Pizzaz, which features Aaron, Stefan AND Dennis Gonzalez (double/electric bass, drums/vibes and trumpet, respectively), as well as:

"Jim Lehnert on sax and trombone, Dennis Gonzalez on trumpet and Tamara Cauble on violin.. With the team of production and sound design by Vas Deferens Organization. Vas Deferens Organization is made up of Matt Castille, and Eric Lumbleau."

The group apparently worked on a number of other tracks with Pink as well, and we'll have more on that for you here as soon as we confirm all the details.

Update: We should mention that the track was recorded at Klearlight Studio, which has not only had a wealth of good local artists working there lately, such as Darktown Strutters, True Widow, the reunited and legendary underground metal act Divine Eve, and the excellent Berliner Eins, which features the studio's own Jay Jernigan and Jonathan Montpas; but also yielded the Ariel Pink/VDO collaboration Shits and Giggles and the Trick Or Treat LP, which was mostly overlooked after it was recorded nearly two years ago, and possibly even more music from Ariel Pink that may or may not ever see release. And as has been reported, the studio of course, also acts as a label, with releases on its own Restore Vinyl imprint.

I can't help but feel that Dallas is one of the only places where Ariel Pink recording in an actual studio and increasingly departing from his bedroom sound, which has been one of the most talked about and important narratives in music in 2010, goes largely ignored even though DFW is one of the actual settings for said narrative. And yet every painful acoustic troubadour project gets top billing. Hey, as some smart dead guy said, "That's the way of the world."


Correction: Earlier we had listed Jimi Bowman as being part of Berliner Eins, when he was in fact, the mix & mastering engineer on the duo's 7-inch release, which you should make every effort to hear, since there are very few things like it in the current local scene. We apologize for this very rare mistake. -DL