BREAKING SOUNDS: Ty Segall Lemons LP

posted Thursday Aug 13th, 2009

If there's one major emerging force pushing the limits of energy dissemination this year, you have got to hand it to SF bay-area wunderkind Ty Segall who has managed to chuck forth no less than three LPs and six singles worth of sheer raw excitement within a time frame that normally would get the most ambitious folks ready for their first practice. Staggering out of the fog last year with two brain-frying singles on Goodbye Boozy and Chocolate Covered Records, Ty Segall emerged from behind the drum seat of his previous bands, Traditional Fools (along with Perverts, Party Fowl and Epsilons) with a snarling innocence that demanded your attention, gurgling with great noisy soul-stirrers that stung your eyes and aurally blindsided you on impact. Still just barely out of his teens, Seagall has managed to not only explode on the underground in record time, but also secured his spot in the illustrious atmospheric psychedelic trenches of the Sic Alps this past winter, as well. If you're already well-worn on Segall's debut Lp on Castleface last summer, this follow-up LP Lemons on Goner Records will suck you in even farther, so brace yourselves as keeping up with Ty's neverending stream of releases and side-projects is almost a superhuman feat in itself.

The Lemons LP starts off with a crashing, woozy slurring that conjures up the scenario of a behemoth waking up in a room full of glass figurines, careening and belligerently clearing a space for the grooves to take hold. Although the songs on Lemons have a consistently controlled feel to them versus the debut Lp's orgone explosivity, a strong songwriting value takes hold showing quick metabolic progress and excitement that just doesn't let up across the length of the whole album. Never really venturing far off from his primordial Troggs-style stomp, Segall proves here with his follow-up LP that 2009 is the year he "arrives," and offers an indirect invitation to his rapidly evolving world where somehow quantity and quality come together symmetrically. Coming up in the neo-Budget Rock hotbed of San Francisco, Segall pulls some of the best nuances from his less-local surroundings. Melding the oblivious sneer of Dan Melchior's deadpan vocal delivery with the robotically astute manic rhythms of The Intelligence at times, it's not hard to see that Segall has worked hard at doing what comes naturally. He's been stewing in those juices for the better part of the last five years, and on tracks like "Rusted Dust" and "Like You," the Sic Alps influence shines brightly as well, and on his version of Captain Beefheart's heart-pounding classic "Dropout Boogie," you won't have a drop of resistance left in your withered body. Pick up the stunning Lemons LP on Goner Records right HERE, right now.

Once the Ty Segall sickness takes hold (and yes it will), you won't be left without records to fill the emptiness, that's for sure. Also this month, HBSP-2X Records has released the Horn The Unicorn LP, a tidy compilation of singles, demos and cassette-only tracks from last year's early releases that fills in even more of the gaps and should sate your soul until you can manage to track down the impressive list of singles and side-projects Segall is already famous for. Pick up a copy of the Horn The Unicorn LP (along with all the other Segall albums) right HERE, along with Lemons album on Goner, and your last month of Summer might not turn out to be a bummer after all.

Check out a promo video for the new Goner 7" single, "Cents" right here: