In addition to making gnarly movies, Ben and Josh Safdie have an ear for soundtracks (check out their film Good Time and the accompanying Oneohtrix Point Never score if you haven’t already). For their 2015 film Heaven Knows What they managed to get Los Angeles king of freaks Ariel Pink to cough up two original songs in addition to appearing in the movie (for literally like 2 seconds). At first I thought the ninja-star shape of the record was a pointless gimmick, but then I remembered there’s actually a scene in the film involving a ninja star so it gets a pass from me. Both tracks display a particular strain of experimentalism that we don’t normally see in Ariel’s solo records, which tend to follow his warped interpretation of the American songwriter tradition. These two joints feature more prominent synthesizer parts and lots of vocal processing (not too dissimilar to that split 45 he just did with BMSR). Side A “I Need A Minute” is a 3.5 minute injection of screwed synth, drum machine and vocoder balladry, hinting at the romance of a locked door that fits the film like a glove. The B side is a rare duet with Dev Hynes; and it’s exactly what you’d want a Blood Orange + Haunted Graffiti collab to sound like, but still strangely hopeful sounding. It was written for the film but somehow didn’t get used (probably not bummer enough). This was a limited edition Black Friday-only release but we managed to get our hands on a small stack. Pink colored wax, custom die-cut ninja star shape (watch your fingers, this MF is SHARP), limited to 850 copies. Recommended.

• pink colored vinyl
• custom die-cut ninja star shaped vinyl
• housed in PVC outer sleeve
• side A features an original song by Ariel Pink
• side B features an unused duet with Dev Hynes
• limited edition
• music label: Factory 25 2015

reviewed by yung pilot astray 05/2018