This Is Not Trying

It's hard to say what ah-real does to me. I feel a little sleazy, a little insulted even, by the way he sounds and feels and looks (especially his grotesque drawings).

(my molly)

A lobster fisherman once told me that Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti was "so bad it's good," without further explanation. I sat cross-legged on the kitchen floor with this distorted smear of hopped-up noise echoing from the boombox. I understood it like nothing else and it seemed to fry my brain and everything I'd ever thought about music and what the criteria was for shitfuck awesome.

(interesting results)

Here ah-real tells us blatantly, "I know how to do it, there is nothing to it." His voicebox is sometimes-deep, sometimes-seagull high. He lazily says, "I'm not gonna try anymore." Soon thereafter, he shrieks: "THIS IS NOT TRYING!!" and breaks it all apart. Apparently he creates most of his drum beats using his armpits and mouth. Respect.