Like many European cities, Berlin isn’t fond of tearing things down. Unlike its prettier neighbours, however, Berlin doesn’t only hang on to signs of a glorious past; it retains (or lets be, at least) the “ugly” marks of recent history and of its present-day inhabitants’ more immediate efforts to claim spaces as their own.

Most notably, Berlin is marked by the ubiquitous presence of graffiti and street art and all sorts of public texts and images that trouble the boundaries between the former and the latter. Here, nothing is painted over. One imagines, in fact, that the owners of buildings are happy to have their exterior walls defaced, since defacement itself seems to be part of the process of having structures woven into the landscape of the city.

Some of the well-preserved grit does invite cynical sneers, like the scrawls on low-rent apartment buildings now occupied by creatives (or trustafarians), who are, presumably, enjoying the “authenticity” of sharing space with the ghosts of squatters and vagrants past. Still, for visitors, Berlin’s unwillingness to efface recent history, mundane or otherwise, remains seductive. There is, undoubtedly, romance nesting in images of unheralded artists from prior years standing for hours on scaffolding several stories aboveground and leaving behind large, surreal paintings of half-naked bald-headed men fishing for diamonds or portraits with air vents for eyes.

***

The dive bar-cum-live music venue Lovelite appears typically, if not quintessentially Berlin. A former car workshop, it stands on a quiet street in Friedrichshain. Its outside wall is bare concrete and marked, predictably, by worn posters and graffiti. Inside, signs of its past life are clearly visible. Junk is scattered on one side of the driveway. An open garage operates as an outdoor bar and waiting room. A tough-looking woman works inside a mobile container van, selling fries to a crowd patiently waiting for the doors to open to Ariel Pink’s show. The whole place has the aura of an institution, but it also seems emblematic of current, global obsessions with micro-local urban histories. The day before I go there, someone tells me that “Lovelite sucks” and I wonder if it has fallen victim to the seemingly universal drive for newness. In line to get in, I overhear someone say that he would love to get this crowd into his club.

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Ariel Pink is mostly playing tracks from “Before Today,” the latest album from his project/outfit/band Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti. Pink, a cult lo-fi hero was, until last year, best known for “The Doldrums,” an album which was originally recorded in 1999 and 2000 and which shot to prominence in 2004, when it became the first non-Animal Collective release from the Paw Tracks label. Between “The Doldrums” and “Before Today,” Pink earned a reputation as a recluse, a prolific songwriter who worked at home and who was able to churn out a vast catalogue of art-damaged and, at times, inaccessible songs that ambitiously intermingled synth-pop, post-punk, funk, and jazz, among others. Despite the affiliation with Animal Collective and his adventurous and experimental bent, Pink’s vast body of work was and remains difficult to think of in the terms of a future-looking avant-gardism. The unmistakable presence of influences such as ‘60s pop and new wave in his songs always seemed, despite the tendency towards pastiche, to be tinged with an honest nostalgia that appears removed from the deliberateness associated with movements.

“Before Today” has been billed as a step out of the basement/bedroom—a slicker, more accessible record under a more prestigious label (4AD). Even with the difference in fidelity, however, the sense of nostalgia remains and continues to be manifested in eclectic ways, from the ‘70s-style intro of “Round and Round” to the guitar solo of “Butt-House Blondies.” On stage, Pink looks like a blast from the past—not his past, which is marked (or marred, depending on who you ask) with a reputation for poor live performances, but the past of ideal-type rock stars. His face is mostly obscured by oversized sunglasses. He moves in a slightly androgynous fashion. He works effortlessly with a backing band made up of respected musicians. At no point, however, does the performance feel affected; like Pink’s music, his and his band’s performance feels, in the context of a time oversaturated with irony, overwhelmingly “authentic.”

If there is irony here, it lies in the fact that Pink’s rise to prominence comes at the heels of his influence on newer artists such as Neon Indian, Washed Out, and Memory Tapes/Cassette. These other basement/bedroom projects are also laced with nostalgia, but their recuperation of the past is often driven by a more playfully ironic reference point, namely teenage culture. Few, in fact, would describe Pink as one among now numerous lo-fi acts. He appears, if anything, as a precursor who is only just getting his due, as someone out of time. Indeed, the story of Pink’s “discovery” by Animal Collective (a story that involves a CD-R) appears mythic when set against the high-speed “real time” of the meme culture from which current acts emerge.

After the show, I get the chance to talk to Pink on Lovelite’s driveway. He looks far less intimidating without his sunglasses and far shorter off-stage. He bums a cigarette and seems excited by the fact that he has fans in Manila. I tell him that it’s really difficult to find a vinyl copy of “Before Today.” He says something about the printers or the label or something. I don’t quite catch it; I’m too struck by how different, regular, and unassuming he comes off when he’s not performing. He doesn’t say much though about the record’s unavailability; he just shrugs and says that I shouldn’t get him started.