Imagine this: Nightmare on Elm Street is real, you just fell asleep, and now you’re in a boiler room/high school locker room/creepy sleep away camp site where a bunch of teenagers were murdered last year. You’re with a gang of Japanese rockabilly motorcyclists and a friendly cannibal and you just heard a strange noise in the other room/in the woods. You walk towards what could either be an inevitable doom or your salvation from this nightmare….Ok, so what’s the soundtrack?

Answer: Before Today.

The track titles on Before Today are appropriate considering the supporting music: “Fright Night (Nevermore),” “Beverly Kills,” “Butt-House Blondies,” etc. If the tracks sound kitsch it’s because Ariel Pink’s whole album is wrapped in an endearing blanket of horror flick nostalgia. Before Today is like an acidy, psychedelic music version of the ‘80s B-horror movies your film freak friends worship.

If you’re not a fan of pics like Sleepaway Camp, Carrie, or the slasher reels covered by Mystery Science Theater 3000, then you might hesitate to walk in… because walking into the creepy room is always mistake #1 of movie murder victims. Rest assured, however, that once Ariel Pink locks the door behind you, a good time awaits. Even if said “good time” involves a bucket of blood and a scene where the cheerleaders are set aflame. Ah, dead teenagers…

Opener “Hot Body Rub” throws you into the deep end of the weirdness, sounding as if a Japanese Steve McQueen did a track on Deep Note: Music of 1970s Adult Cinema. And it only gets better from there. Before Today culls the best of the psychedelic scene, like a more engrossing Nuggets collection, bumps it up with some ‘80s post-punk influence and heavy borrowing from Michael Jackson’s beats (“Round and Round” and “Menopause Man”), and still has room to throw in a bit of French mod. In other words, Pink knows his music history, dishing out a signature blend of vintage styles and pop beats.

Even though all the tracks on Before Today follow a similar vein, Pink balances his influences, artfully fading out the ‘70s acid camp before it grows wearisome for some early ‘90s grunge guitars (“Butt-House Blondies”) or bassy punk (“Revolution’s a Lie” and “Little Wig”). The concoction of wah-wah pad effects, porno bass, distorted saxophone, high-pitched keyboards, and echoes is brewed to perfection. Listeners with a wide knowledge of music history will inevitably be familiar with the individual styles on Before Today—but I doubt anyone has heard them put together in this manner. Pink’s compositions are unique. More bluntly, they’re completely out of left field. Ariel Pink seems to be the type of guy who does not give a fuck what you think about his music—completely unrestricted in his creativity—because Before Today is free of trends, hipness, or self-consciousness. With Before Today Pink has created his own world, his own genre.

Comparisons to explain this album are lacking. The majority of the time it reminds me of a soundtrack to an X-rated Scooby Doo haunted house adventure. Pink is signed to Animal Collective’s label, Paw Tracks, which could place him as a weirder, darker, campier version of the east coast band. But really, if there’s any artist like Ariel Pink, their locally distributed cassettes are languishing in a dusty corner of a used music store. Which is often how Before Today feels—like discovering an obscure artist whose fans can be counted on one hand. Even though this album is blowing up in the blogosphere, making the internet’s tubes glow red hot, its lo-fi tape sound and mix of decades-old styles makes you feel like you’re listening to an unsigned, long forgotten act—which will make Before Today even more appealing to those music aficionados with stacks of Rough Trade Shop releases. Or anyone who ever yearned for a re-imagined Warriors soundtrack.

Track List:
1. Hot Body Rub
2. Bright Lit Blue Skies
3. L’estat (Acc. To the Widow’s Maid)
4. Fright Night (Nevermore)
5. Round and Round
6. Beverly Kills
7. Butt-House Blondies
8. Little Wig
9. Can’t Hear My Eyes
10. Reminiscences
11. Menopause Man
12. Revolution’s a Lie