The Scene

Oh what’s this, another Ty Segall album? DON’T MIND IF I DO!

Garage rock’s foremost champion son is nothing if not prolific, barely six months ever go by without him unveiling some new record, be it a solo jaunt such as this or one of his many and always rewarding side projects. 2016 was a pretty quiet one for him, dropping Emotional Mugger in January and then in the back half of the year came GOGGS, a debut for a new hard-edged punkier kind of band, though mostly he was jet setting on the back of Mugger, spreading its screech and mania on tour with some high concept showmanship.

Like the psycho baby mask that scared the hell out of more than a few witnesses. Because instant gratification culture is zapping our personalities and leaving us as shells inhabited by infantile fears and demands, you know? The more candy, the stroppier.

So in a way, perhaps Ty Segall (the record, not the man) is like hitting the reset button. Segall’s great at bringing a focus to his records. There are riff-heavy albums in there like Slaughterhouse, there’s the acoustic melodies of Sleeper, there’s the glam rock stardom of Manipulator, etc. He’s done the paranoid album, now it’s time for something else and this is that.

The Songs

1. Break a Guitar – There’s that familiar crunching… a chantable chorus with a triumphant hook… purposeful rhythm… yeah mate, another one for the canon.
2. Freedom – Slightly choppy in the verse, strummed acoustic git-fiddle slapping a beat, but daaaamn this song is great when it hits that change. NOW I FEEEEEEL… EVERYYYTHIIIIING…!
3. Warm Hands (Freedom Returned) – Diez minutos of Early-Floydian extravaganza. Love the layered vocals. It’s a trippy psych-rocker for the first five and an even trippier tour of the cosmos in the second five. Never dull, watch the comets fly by your earlobes. Kind of amazing.
4. Talkin’ – Dropping back to earth with a sly wink at those who would cast their words in anger. I think you’re talkin’, talkin’ about yourself. Almost a country feel to the sway of it.
5. The Only One – Heavy, loud, abrasive. Don’t normally get that snarl out of Ty, I like it. Those hi-hats get a real workout here.
6. Thank You Mr. K – A few punk chords propel this one along, the chorus twinkles in the most aggressive way that one can twinkle. Who’s Mister K? It doesn’t get any more punk than stopping the song midway through to smash something either.
7. Orange Color Queen – Sweet and vulnerable in his own particular way. It’s a love song, man. The lead single and probably the most accessible. It’ll make the career retrospective playlist someday.
8. Papers – Might literally be a song about sticking notes to a wall, there are no limits to the creative spirit. Got a pretty cool 70s rock feel to it once it gets in stride.
9. Take Care (To Comb Your Hair) – A plucked acoustic intro, well now that’s simply gorgeous. No idea what the song means but the drums drop with a strut and the whole thing rocks and rolls in equal measure. The half-distorted guitar tone is a badass touch. Same with the ‘c’mon!’ call.
10. Untitled – Bzzzz/Blergh/Pshhhh

The Vibe

Yeah, Ty plays it pretty straight here and that’s alright. No deliberate gimmicks, just songs. There’s a heavier feel to the first half of the album with the second half getting slightly smoother. It all flows, don’t worry. In a way you could argue he’s gone for the full sampler with the crunching riffs and the whimsy Syd Barrett-ery all combined together and if that makes it a bit uneven then sure, I won’t argue with that. The record almost has a mixtape feel to it.

But this dude writes killer songs so that’s not a problem. The joke is how daunting his discography is with so many projects all balanced and so many albums to track down and listen to so the idea of a sampler kind of album is a decent one, although I’d imagine that’s not a deliberate aim here. More like he had some cool songs, maybe one or two left over from Manipulator, a couple from Emotional Mugger, the odd thing that didn’t crack it for Fuzz and plenty of new stuff and figured: let’s get recording. He works so bloody hard, the next album is already in the mixing stages. No, seriously it is.

I mean, there are still the odd moments of envelope pushing. He’s not an artist who feels like he needs to pander and when you write such catchy hooks as he does you don’t need to either. So sure, if he wants he can let Mr K slide off into silence and then smash something up before launching back into the song. You can say that he’s playing it safe in someways but that’s not strictly true. Or if it is you can only be talking about it in his own context. Ty’s a bloke who draws from a long tradition of psych weirdness anyway so that allows him the freedom to write songs like Freedom. There’s a restless feeling of experimentation in that which Segall manages to channel into a natural expression. That’s no small achievement, it’s incredible how consistent he is. So consistent that this feels like a run of the mill record when he smashes a toilet up in the middle of it.

The Music

The album was first teased with a drop of Orange Color Queen and a video they of Segall smashing up an old toilet with Steve Albini watching on, which was obviously quite amazing. Steve Albini, aye? The only shocker there is that it took so long for this union to happen. That should probably be the main selling point, that Segall worked with Albini, but to be honest there’s not a huge difference in sound. Segall’s an accomplished producer in his own right and there’s none of that deep bass sound from those iconic Albini tracks. Having said that, it looks cool in the credits.

Segall brings in a lot of the usual suspects here. The great Mikal Cronin is again on bass while Charles Moothart takes up the drums with Ben Boye on keys and Emmett Kelley laying down some scintillating second guitar to Segall’s own axe. So, not one of those efforts where Segall plays every instrument, but playing with folks he’s logged so many hours with in the past really cooks and the best example of that is on the ten-minute-long Warm Hands (Freedom Returned) which ranks as one of it not the longest track this dude has ever cut, replete with extended jamming like you don’t normally get from a Segall record. Usually when things get instrumental it’s all about fire and fury, unleashing energy. Here we’re talking about a proper jam, some Grateful Dead jazz.

Actually, I checked the ol’ eyeTunes and Fuzz War from Slaughterhouse (with the Ty Segall Band) is one second longer. 10:24 vs 10:23. Okay then.

That kind of jamming is something that only really sizzles when you do it with a live band. Sure, he probably could have assembled it piece by piece, but it wouldn’t have the same impact. Also, given how many side projects the lad has, he’s clearly a fella who relishes that kinda musical camaraderie and that’s exactly what this is. Call it flexing, but the song comes and goes in what feels like half the time.

Break A Guitar is pretty strong but the album hits top gear when the hook in Freedom catches. It’s a flippin’ marvel that one. Puts a smile on any old dial. Talkin’ sounds like Marc Bolan had a bad experience on Twitter (in a good way) and The Only One is a solid banger itself. Nothing here feels new, not even the acoustic stuff since he’s trod that path before too (Sleeper is a superb album). The strength of Segall’s songs is usually the melody and the noise all builds upon that, despite his reputation as a garage shredder. Most of these songs can be carefully slid into other albums in the oeuvre (ooh la la) and you wouldn’t notice the dissonance. That’s kind of the point.

Orange Color Queen is an interesting one, it’s a really sweet song written for his girlfriend and while Ty isn’t a dude to worry about people’s expectations of him, he hasn’t really trod that path before. Even when this guy is playing a straight bat he still finds ways to experiment with new things. The bastard’s relentless.

Revelations

Drag City: “A clean flow; something real for a world that doesn't know what it's holding. Ty keeps us guessing while splashing our collective face with no shortage of astringent tunes of all colors.”

 “I think you're talkin', talkin' about yourself”

The Molly Joe and Phillip Jean namechecks in Talkin’ are worth a chuckle. The song itself is just a little bit of a wink already but the male-female mixaroos there sound so natural it almost slips by you. Molly Jean and Phillip Joe wouldn’t have had the same ring to them.  

“Oh, you're my orange lady/Oh, you're the silver lips of honey/Oh, you're my cherry fizzle sundae/Oh, you're a tree inside of an airplane”

Some self-titled albums seem like major statements of artistic intent, like this is the one that truly represents me. Others get the name because it’s the first record and an introduction. This one seems more like he couldn’t be bothered coming up with a name. There’s not a word on the album cover.

“The papers they depend on tape, I’ve stuck them to the wall. The papers they depend on tape, so they do not fall”

Oh man, this Crazy Horse kinda rendition of Sleeper is nothing but fuego. So good.

Segall speaking to Uncut: “As for the jam on [epic album track] ‘Warm Hands’, I love the Grateful Dead. I know a lot of people don’t like them, but everyone in the band now is a heavy Deadhead.”

Mate, if you’re not a Grateful Dead fan then that’s fine. But if you’re one of those pricks who irrationally hate them then I don’t wanna know you. I love the friggin’ Dead, they’re the best. Not just Jerry either, Bob Weir is a maestro in his own right.

Is the smashing toilet vid the same audio as the smashing in Mr K? Better check that for yourselves, for now it’s a working theory.

The original self-titled album:

Finale

This is a confusing case because there isn’t a bad song in the lot and it’s a record that’s easy to come back to for repeat listens. Yet… I dunno, it’s missing something. Just a little urgency or whatever. It could be a case where a different track listing would keep the back half invigorated and improve the overall experience or maybe it’s that it’s a couple tracks short. Considering one song is only 13 seconds long consisting of two chords, some feedback and a bit of studio chatter there are really only nine tracks here.

But even if Ty Segall isn’t on par with Twins or Manipulator, it’s still a fine addition to the catalogue and one with enough variations that, despite a few too many judderbars, still offers a jam or two for damn near anyone. Hey, you’ve gotta spread the name after all. Gotta fill those stadiums eventually. The dude is so refined these days, such a master of what he does, that the lo-fi nature of his earliest recordings perhaps take some getting used to. If that’s the case, then this album serves as a worthy intro to the man. A range of his standards, pushing the boundaries just far enough that he’s still in control. And if you don’t care for that and wanna hear the lad get back to the conceptual focus of Emotional Mugger or Sleeper then wait a few months and he’ll have something else for ya.