OUT OF PRINT

After years of recording in relative seclusion in the hills of Los Angeles, Ariel Pink (the first non-Animal Collective member on the Paw Tracks roster) made his official Paw Tracks debut with The Doldrums. Recording at home with a guitar, bass, keyboard, and 8-track (the drum sounds are all unbelievably created with his mouth), Ariel Pink blends Lite FM and warped lo-fi pop into something beautiful and confusing, yet highly addictive.  Ariel Pink’s excess of ideas, alongside his determination to make music from a trance-like state of privacy, places him among characters like R Stevie Moore, Daniel Johnston, or a young Kate Bush.

Full of spirited humor, Half-handed Cloud dissolves any obstacles standing in the way of his innocent bulldozing, jam-packing a sixties sensibility, the touch of a lullaby, and murmurs of divine redemption into micro-narrative and Casio sound effects. Just as fingers begin to snap in time, the artist wraps it up and crackles to conclusion.  A trombonist since the age of ten, Ringhofer picked up the guitar as a teenager while recovering from toe surgery. Watching the artist equip himself with the sounds of a 1960’s era Sears particleboard guitar, air organ, chattering dolls, stomping on the kitchen floor, and various sixties-pop influences, one may begin to perceive an invisible pattern in the songster’s art deco rug.

This is the third in a series of vinyl-only releases.  The series, entitled Unusual Animals, pairs Asthmatic Kitty roster artists with friends and sometimes-unlikely bedfellows. Each record includes a beautiful rendering of one of Mother Nature’s stranger inhabitants by illustrator Jared Chapman. This limited-edition series expands the Asthmatic Kitty family to include some unexpected folks.