Ty Segall SLEEPER (Out 18.10.13)
When Ty Segall performed ‘You’re The Doctor’ from last solo album Twins on The Late Show he left the Ed Sullivan Theater awash with feedback. David Letterman then said nonchalantly “remember kids don’t neglect your studies”. This is the kind of back handed compliment that publicists would pay Twitter click farms to harvest.
Segall has also played an encore featuring a cover of Black Sabbath’s ‘Paranoid’ not once, not twice, but three times. Some might suggest that playing ‘Paranoid’ over and over is the actions of a self-indulgent duche. Some may say that the music he plays is retro, garage rock revival even. To call it revivalism in Ty Segall’s case though is to belittle the mastery over the guitar, hook and chutzpah that this ace possesses in spades.
This is someone who would be crafting songs that crackle electrically whatever era he’d been born, from the grooves of a record through to the tightly compressed data of a .wav file.
Born in Laguna Beach in 1987, Segall was initially given the patronage of psych king John Dwyer of Thee Oh Sees and CastleFace Records. He is and was a member of bands Fuzz, The Traditional Fools, Epsilons, Part Fowl, Sic Alps, The Perverts and the Ty Segall Band (of which naturally he is the leader). Last year was an anus mirablis for the wunderkind with a triptych of albums Hair (with White Fence), Slaughterhouse (with his touring band) and Twins (solo). Hair was a complete trip, with White Fence’s Mikal Cronin, the Brendan Benson to Segall’s White. Slaughterhouse was The Stooges and Ramones shot through like the abridged works of Shakespeare. Twins had a primitive 4-4 beat blasted with the odd tap of the superfuzz pedal.
Sleeper is his eighth solo record. It’s different again but unmistakeably Ty Segall. It’s far from somnambulant, containing an inner lyrical rage combined with an acoustic guitar sound reminiscent of The Byrds or Tyrannosaurus Rex. Segall’s father recently passed after long term illness. He then fell out with his mother in a dramatic fashion. This is most poignantly stated in the song “Crazy” whose lyrics intone “he’s here, he’s still here, but she is crazy”.
Much of his previous output is distortion drenched and high powered. On ‘Sleeper it’s only at 2’29” into ‘The Man Man’ where the discordance we’ve come to expect rears its head, but this doesn’t make the album any less striking. Apparently Ty wasn’t able to play anything other than softly softly due to his heavy heart. As the album fades with ‘The West’ a song about hanging at his father’s house, it’s clear that Sleeper is a deeply personal journey. It’s also one that exposes the rawness at the core of this guitar hero and surprisingly earnest singer-songwriter. 7.7/10
Nick Hutchings
Ty Segall – Sleeper (Live on KEXP @Pickathon)