Ty Segall: Freedom’s Goblin
We’re not sure exactly why we’ve been so lackadaisical about reviewing Freedom’s Goblin, but we think it’s cuz we’ve been enjoying it so much we haven’t wanted to spoil things. For this is the album that Ty has promised since approximately 2011, when Goodbye Bread, simple song structures and all, announced the arrival of a genuine rock tyro who would someday do Big Things. That day, friends, that day is here.
2016’s Ty Segall gave a hint of what was just about to come, combining in a single L.P. all the joys we’ve come to associate with Ty over the years: patented fuzz punk, great songwriting and singing, some acoustic standouts, and even long experiments that harkened to the halcyon days of album rock (talking about you, Sticky Fingers.) Freedom’s Goblin is a quantum leap beyond anything Segall has ever done.
We’ve read comparisons to The Beatles, that little band’s so-called White Album, and they’re not far off. For over the course of a double album, we get a virtuosic display of songwriting that stretches definitions even as the album locks in our sense of Segall as among the two or three most compelling forces in music this decade. We get classic Segall rockers (“When Mommy Kills You,” “She,” “Shoot You Up,” “5 Feet Tall”), melodic acoustic marvels (“My Ladies On Fire,” “You Say All The Nice Things,” “I’m Free”), but also experimental overtures making full use of Mikal Cronin’s incredible No Wave sax and arranging (“Rain,” “Alta,” “Prison,” “Talking,” and “The Main Pretender.”) And his cover of Hot Chocolate’s “Everyone’s A Winner” not only calls to mind another artist who could record albums by himself or with a killer band — Prince — it reminds us of that great Dan Ingram line from the heyday of WABC’s playing disco hits: “That song’s so dirty it left a stain on our speaker.”
By moving to a band approach that makes full use of Cronin, Charles Moothart, and other musicians, Segall is free to relax and simply make the greatest record of his distinguished career. He seems to have grown in parallel to Thee Oh Sees’ John Dwyer, a rocks’n’roll artist who, contending with today’s very different terms and conditions, is making music that easily competes with the best work of the ’60s, ’70s, and ’90s. That we can mention Segall in the same breath as The Beatles is possibly the best thing about the otherwise benighted age we live in.
Calexico: The Thread That Keeps Us
One reason we haven’t written much in 2018 is because Ty Segall’s not the only artist to offer up, early in the new year, a double album that ranks as a career best. A contender for the best album of the ‘Aughts was Calexico’s Carried To Dust, but we admit that we haven’t found their albums in the ’10s as achieving that high standard. With The Thread That Keeps Us, Calexico reasserts themselves as marvels of melodic alt.pop that takes its cues from the Colorado River drainage into Mexico.
Joey Burns and John Convertino took their band on a road trip to the Pacific Coast to record this new one, but it still sounds like they’re playing at a house party on some spring evening deep in the saguaro forests near Tucson. Mexicali brass underscore the best songs played by an expanded combo. This is a very political album, for how could it not be when we live under a regime that has declared war on the very concept of honoring the Estados Unidos’ ties to our cultural equals south of the Rio Grande?
Calexico’s patented miracle concoction of strong songwriting, beautiful singing, and cross-cultural grace has never sounded better than it does on The Thread That Keeps Us.
The Liminanas: Shadow People
It’s the connection to Anton Newcombe that first turned us onto the best garage band in Perpignon, France. The Liminanas have come a long way from early albums that showcased Italian film music even as they sounded like Newcombe’s Brian Jonestown Massacre. The song “Shadow People” was released on the E.P. “Istanbul Is Sleepy” last November, and thankfully the E.P.’s title song, sung by Anton, is also included in this early 2018 highlight.
It’s rare that band that has to rely, for the most part, on outside guests singing can both entertain and convey a sense of unity. But in the Liminanas, and with Shadow People, we have an act that holds our attention and esteem.
Candace: New Future
A few years ago, when we were deep down the rabbit hole of listening to Minneapolis bands that, one way or another, had ties to First Communion Afterparty, a Twin City tipster told us we should check out Is/Is. That band of young women changed their name (for obvious reasons) to Candace, as well as their locale, following acts like the Shins to Portland. New Future is their first full-length album, and we can’t stop listening to it. Yes, there will be comparisons to Chastity Belt, but Candace are much better musicians. At times harkening to the world Dean Wareham inhabits — Galazie 500, Luna — and at other moments seeming like some Dream Pop confection, this is a debut album filled with melody and hooks. Whether or not Candace’s future is new, it is certainly bright.
Tulip Frenzy 