Ariel Pink

Ariel Pink, born Ariel Marcus Rosenberg in 1978, is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and producer based in Los Angeles who became one of the most influential figures in the lo-fi and hypnagogic pop scenes. As a teenager he began recording on an eight-track Portastudio, self-releasing his debut Underground in 1998, and while studying fine arts at CalArts he issued The Doldrums in 2000, an album whose warped, tape-saturated pop songwriting would later be reissued by Animal Collective’s Paw Tracks label and become a touchstone for a generation of underground musicians.

For over a decade his recordings were credited to the project name Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti rather than his own name, a distinction he has said reflects the project as a creative vehicle rather than a persona. During this period he lived for a time in a Hindu ashram and released a run of albums between 2001 and 2003 that cemented his reputation for woozy, ghostly pop production built from cheap gear and idiosyncratic arrangements, blending classic rock, soft rock, new wave, and psychedelia into something distinctly his own.

His 2014 album pom pom, the first credited simply to Ariel Pink, became his most commercially successful release and broadened his profile through collaborations with artists including R. Stevie Moore, Dâm-Funk, Miley Cyrus, and Charli XCX. Known for a distinctive, often deliberately lo-fi aesthetic and an unpredictable public persona, Ariel Pink remains a singular and divisive figure whose influence on contemporary indie and bedroom pop is widely acknowledged.