Available on: 4AD LP

Earlier Ariel Pink records were like an old, broken TV set, with glimpses of recognisable shapes occasionally shimmering through the static. With Before Today it’s like someone’s reached over and given the TV a well-placed knock, suddenly bringing everything into focus and saturated with vibrant colour. The result is the most inviting record I’ve heard all year, an album so good you want to set your day around the opportunities to listen to it.

Before Today is the first album for which the Haunted Graffiti have been a proper band, rather than a one-man bedroom recording project. It proves to be a radical transformation and confirms much of what Ariel Pink has been saying in interviews for years, that the fuggy textures of his early work were a consequence of the limitations of his recording techniques rather an intentional stylistic move – what he was aiming for all along was the intoxicating glossiness of 70 high-end production. Here, he achieves that, although there’s still some sunset haziness to soften the edges.

As never before, though, the focus is on the tunes themselves, and they are sublime; liquid West Coast harmonies floating together with hallucinogenic logic that recalls Love’s Forever Changes.  Every song here has at least one melodic refrain that is complete, angelic perfection. Indeed some, such as the sweetest love song, ‘Can’t Hear My Eyes’ and the majestic ‘Round and Round’ are made of nothing but these moments. In a strange way, the album makes me think of the Klaxons, were they touched by genius and steeped in Beverley Hills folklore; there’s a similar ramshackle and runaway train feel, breathlessly careening though ecstatic instrumental breaks and fluttering falsettos.

So instantly appealing and sentimental is Before Today, that at first it’s hard not to suspect a hidden ironic agenda. We’re not accustomed to today’s artists being so unashamedly accessible and dramatic without it being some kind of pastiche.  But no, Before Today revives the pop classicism of the likes of Fleetwood Mac with generous and genuine love. Ariel has been in this place before, with his jangle pop side project Holy Shit, but this is something else. Tunes such as ‘Bright Lit Blue Skies’ are some of the purest expressions of pop music’s potential for beauty that one could hope for.

This is a truly moving record, especially when set in context next to Ariel’s previous albums. His earlier records felt trapped, or haunted, by the past, the sound of distant memories warped and decayed by time. That was their weird power. But Before Today is immediate, both in the sense that it instantly makes sense, and that it seems to shine out from the here and now; a vital stream of consciousness that flies free, no longer constrained by the weight of history. The awkwardness and squalor of Ariel Pink’s previous recordings have suddenly fallen away to reveal a dazzling core. Above all, the album is testament to the wonder of the human imagination, of letting ideas run forward and carry you to new places. As Ariel sings on ‘Menopause Man’, “you’re trying too hard, to be what you are”. Before Today is the joyful sound of unbounded creativity.

Simon Hampson