Ty Segall - Hello, Hi
Ty Segall
“Hello, Hi”
By: Robert Hill
While subtle intimacy and closeness mark Segall's lyrics, his compositions link us to a prosocial musical component often missed in the realm of psych rock.
Friday morning, we woke up late.
After a quick shower, I made coffee and searched Ty Segall's latest album, "Hello, Hi" on my phone. Trading the garage for a home studio, Segall's lyrics and vocals on this Drag City Gold Label Release are well-suited to his surreal world filled with concrete clothing, mistimed opportunities, and disconnection.
Though his songwriting has developed masterful subtlety, Segall's apparent reverence for musical relics remains. The temperature of the album shifts between tender plaintiveness and sweltering haze, recalling with veneration a simpler, more hopeful time just outside of our own perception – somewhere we can almost remember.
The opening track, "Good Morning," a brief, mellow, warbling ode to staying in bed, built up slowly as the coffee percolated, so we decided to hit the road out of the city. We threw our tent, sleeping bags, and cooler in our blue 1985 VW Vanagon and headed north, cruising in the slow lane, stopping only for beer and food.
We brought along Laguna Beach High's favorite son, Ty Segall, and his most recent foray into the soupy world of indie psych.
"Hello, Hi" brings the singer's songwriting ability into hyper-focus. Compared with other entries in his solo catalog, "Hello, Hi" feels explicitly evolved.
The jagged rhythm and stomp that characterized his earlier sounds are gone for the most part. "Hello, Hi" is crammed with gently warped tracks that trundle along, lilting and waking briefly to blast off into stratospheric fuzz before drifting back gently into warm, mid-summer grass.
With the city's grit far behind us, we pulled into a campground on the Skagit River around lunchtime and pitched our tents in the sand. I queued up "Hello, Hi." We did our work setting up camp in the shade of the Cascades towering on the horizon, blocking out the sun with Segall's album as accompaniment.
"Blue" and "I'm Looking at You" helped kick off the weekend with some contemplative psych folk/rock hanging in the air. As we finished clicking our tent poles into place, a neighbor, an older gentleman, wandered over, hands in pockets, and asked what we were listening to.
"His name's Ty Segall," I said.
"Really? I thought it was some Zeppelin I hadn't heard. He sounds like T. Rex."
"Right. Sort of like Marc Bolan. I've heard he's an influence."
"Marc, who?"
"…"
"Anyway, not bad." And he wandered off through the blackberry bushes toward the river.
As the sunlight faded and the air cooled, we settled in for the night to Segall's weekend suite entitled "Saturday Pt. 1" and "Saturday Pt. 2."
Kindling was gathered and stacked. A crib of dry twigs was made in the cast iron fire ring, and "Hello, Hi" faded out with the track "Distraction," a fitting closing track to contemplate our all-too-brief, curated communion with nature.
This entry in Segall's rapidly-filling catalog is a wonderfully curated album of gentle psych/folk that asks little of the listener other than accepting them for what they are.
Challenging enough to be interesting, selections like "Cement" and the titular track ground the record in Segall's trademark psychedelia, while others like "Over" contain the intimacy of a panic room.
Nearly flawless, "Hello, Hi" is a solid record that goes great with the familiarity of home or the freedom of the wilderness. A fantastic album filled with surprising yet conventional moments rooted in Bolan-esque glam and post-Powerman-era Kinks jams that entice the listener to lean in and reconsider their emotional relationship with others.
While subtle intimacy and closeness mark Segall's lyrics, his compositions link us to a prosocial musical component often missed in the realm of psych rock.
"Hello, Hi" is a quick trip inside Segall's heart as much as it is a look inside his home during the latter part of the pandemic. Listen with a friend and rediscover what it means to connect with compassion.
