Young Mr. Segall is considerably interested in distortion, turned on in a musically-manic way by the caustic collision between guitar pick-up and amplifier. Fuzzy, roar/purr-feedback, man.
His swirling melodies strike a sunny psychedelia vibe, affecting an almost-handclappable bubblegump strut-pop at points, but yet it’s haunted throughout by this heavy haze of distortion and wobbly echo-effects, pushing the vibe down a bit more towards this tough tantrum-rumble. But those drums keep kicking n’ marching along – not as drugged-out or dirgey as he was on Goodbye Bread, but still clinging lovingly to that crunchy low-end tone. Murky grooves and ravenous riffs are the basement to Segall’s voice flitting around in the attic’s upper register, offsetting the down n dirty instrumentation with his high, breathy wail.
Throughout Twins (already the fifth release from this San-Fran sprouted 20-something) your ears will be consistently thrummed with the terrible purr of Segall’s guitar, like an ever-lingering radioactive cicada churn in the background sporadically swelling for those kicked-up crescendos as the drums go into demolition-mode. But any fans of those old psyche-popNuggets comps will find a kindred in the spirited singer/songwriter. There aren’t many signs of growth (he’s still young, yet), still entranced with a gaunt, guttural approach that gets in and out in 3 minutes, makes a lot of feedback noise and belts woozy/dark/nihilistic ballads of coming-of-age in a post-everything world.
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Pertinent info:
http://www.dragcity.com/artists/ty-segall
Watch: “Twins”
This article appears in Oct 10-16, 2012.
