Where bought? Banquet Records in Kingston-upon-Thames, but online. Took ages getting it through the post because of the pandemic and the backlogs and generally postmen have a bad time finding our flat.
Once upon a time my old band opened for House Arrest-era Ariel Pink at a pub in Lancaster. We interacted a couple of times. Suffice to say that he is a complete space cadet. I remember he wore some really ugly clogs and was annoyed that the other band on the bill had insufficiently protected his gear at a previous gig, leading someone to steal his backing cassettes. His review of my set: "that was wild, I loved that out of tune shit." Owned.
The third in the holy grail trilogy of records made before the days of regular recording fidelity (not that there's nothing good about Underground, Lover Boy, or Scared Famous) that I had to break my piggybank open for (I am 37, this is no laughing matter). House Arrest in comparison to The Doldrums or Worn Copy plays more like a pop record. Admittedly one from a parallel universe where playing the drums with your mouth is a regulation recording strategy, but a credible one.
There's a great Nuggets vibe from a handful of tracks: 'Interesting Results', 'Hardcore Pops Are Fun', 'Every Night I Die At Miyagis' - typically "constructed" guitar pop minatures with hooks.
In so many of the tracks there's an escalating sense of drama through the structures: on previous records it was through novel uses of harmonic layers and generic clashing. Here there's more of a conventional table-setting in each song so an extra long chorus or an added bridge or middle 8 can send the songs into overdrive: check out 'Helen' for what I mean. When we finally hit the chorus we've basically been begging for it all our lives.
Again, this doesn't have much of a personal meaning to me other than that I like it.
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