It wasn’t quite a riot on the Sunset Strip, but Ariel Pink brought a piece of L.A. with him this year, and the following night my roof collapsed. Coincidence? Maybe.

Last year he and the Haunted Graffiti came through Baltimore, but this year it was DC only. Last year it was a yellow sweatshirt with an orange bunny rabbit on it. This year he brought the glam. Last year it was a tinty boombox three rooms removed; this year it was supersized woofers and tweeters wired straight to the brain.

In one short year, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti have become the live show of the summer. Opening with the sleazy beatnik swirl of “Hot Body Rub,” with the delay on the sax bouncing off the walls of the Rock and Roll Hotel, landing a few songs later on “Menopause Man,” the crowd yelping along with cross-gender lyrics against a sulky pulse, and peaking on the tremendous “Round and Round,” the band sustained that rare high you get at one, maybe two shows each year, where the sound that falls forth in waves feels predestined.

In one short year, the group have emerged from a lo-fi smog that never really suited their sound, and have released a landmark album, Before Today, on 4AD, which has immediately become a measuring stick for all left-of-center efforts to channel psychedelia through a pluralistic musical landscape. On one end of the FM dial, I can almost hear Mike Love solo drivel (“Can’t Hear My Eyes”); on the other end, a Peter Hook-ish bass line drives the portentous “Revolution’s A Lie.” All of this is interpreted in a way that would fit nicely on a Nuggets compilation. The album might be the largest step forward since Deerhoof followed up Milkman with The Runners Four in 2005. You can tell it’s the same band, but the smog has lifted.

(The show was a week ago now. As I mentioned above, my roof collapsed the next night, and I have been computer-less until now; I blame Ariel Pink for all of this.)

Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti: Round And Round
Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti: Butt-House Blondies