Ty Segall – Hello, Hi
Ty Segall‘s fourteenth (we think) studio LP under his own name is an absolute gem, an acoustic trip through the Californian valleys. Whilst being directly a product of the great lockdown, it is also the perfect antithesis to the ‘lock down album’, never focusing on the confinement of four walls but instead presenting a rich tapestry of fuzzed tones and rhythms that fill every second of the opulent analogue space across the two sides of the album.
Ty used the time to commit something personal, expansive and genuinely special to tape. There is no idle introspection, this is serious time spent and although arguably some of his most simple or stripped back moments, they are doubtless some of the most commanding songs he has written. There is such a lush haze to the album, with acoustic guitars and vocals humming beautifully in harmony with themselves; the lesser the sonic palette available, the more inventive he has become as both writer and voice. Save the occasional noisy squall, it is just Ty and a handful of instruments, and that gives the album such an evocative retroism, reminiscent most perhaps of the otherworldly vulnerability of Tyrannosaurus Rex.
The album’s penultimate track – Saturday Pt.2 – contains some of the finest four minutes of music he’s produced to date. There is brood, there is melody, there are hooks, there are weird (positively drunk crescendos of saxophones) instrumentations; it is a remarkable (nearly) conclusion to the album and a new career high water mark.
Across all those albums, all those tracks and all those collaborations, he has proved himself time and time again to be a hugely characterful writer, but Hello, Hi presents the most personal document of Ty as the man. It is an album full of offbeat prettiness, trippy melodies and great songs. Something genuinely special from one of the most prolific creators in all of rock’n’roll.
