Since leaving his days as drummer for the Traditional Fools behind, Ty Segall has been continuously experimenting with his unique brand of raw, overdriven guitar. These singles from the first four years of his solo career are witness to a steady progression of his particular vein of glam-punk pop, drawing on a heavy rhythm foundation combined with a single distorted guitar pushed to the very limits of fidelity. It’s one thing for someone like Segall to have the natural ability to write tunes, but to end up with a catalog like this speaks not only to his inherent talent, but also the work ethic he shares with artists like The Fresh and Onlys (QRO photos), Tim Cohen, or the late Jay Reatard (QRO photos). Always in forward motion, with barely enough time to get songs down on tape, these singles are insights into early versions of album tracks, documents of late night recording sessions, channeling T-Rex and Black Sabbath through his unique berserker blues.
The album starts with the track "Where We Go" from the single "It" on Chocolate Covered Records, home to his early drumming efforts with the Traditional Fools. The track begins with the crackling spark of an ungrounded guitar cable and a hyper, stomping percussion beat over scuzzed out guitar. He sets up his distinctive sound before he even starts singing. The range of signal distortion, recorded in mysterious, glitchy ways, should serve as a manual for aspiring sound engineers. To its credit, Singles 2007 – 2010 is exactingly chronological, covering the next three tracks off that single – "It", "Son of Sam" and "Sweets" – all of which continue to push the limits of amplification and what a mic can capture. The pounding, primitive rhythm of a kick drum, alternating against a tom and tambourine combo, becomes the bashing 4/4-metronome timing and his template to experiment with throughout. The individual kick drum hits are panned hard to the left or right channels, recorded separately with enough treble and hiss to nearly emulate a snare. It’s an innovation that makes the stripped down sound of his one-man blues new again.
The four tracks off his second single, "Skin", on Italy’s Goodbye Boozy Records, are from the same year and feature yet another flavor of crunch and an even heavier delay on the vocal. By now Segall is positively screaming, possessed by the yelp of the blues, and experimenting further with instrumentation by adding a warped organ accompaniment on the title track. The distortion and layers of hiss over jabs of windy organ border on psychedelic, another influence subtly coming through as the album winds on.
With the average track running about two minutes, these singles became four song EPs, which might say something about his musical Attention Deficit Disorder or just that he never overplays his hand. It’s impossible for these tracks to wear out their welcome and the brevity places these no-fi gems squarely in the pop camp. The single ends with "…And Then Judy Walked In", where he manages to instill an acoustic with the same kind of dirty, manic distortion as he does with the percussion on these tracks, finishing with an ear bending organ solo on this atypical instrumental.
"Cent’s" from the Goner Records single is a brief window into his early songwriting process, the single version here being a faster blues-ier sounding track then what ended up on Lemons; by the album the focus had evolved to heavily experimenting with the vocals and the tempo was reduced to a mechanical dirge. We’re given similar insight into the track "Caesar", also from Goner. Here we have a slightly shorter edit, with a single layer of vocal, and missing the extended studio banter from the final Melted version. "Fuzzy Cat" from the 2010 "My Sunshine" single from Trouble in Mind finally introduces the glam rock influence into the damaged blues sound he’s been sticking closely to until now. Almost a parody, he sings with an English accent about being a cat; it nearly becomes a Who rock opera until the last minute devolves into a layered soup of hiss and effects. For completists, this collection is weirdly missing "Do It Clean", the final track on the T.I.M. single, but with the inclusion of such rarities as "Happy Creeps", Segall’s contribution to the Bruise Cruise series, or his cover of Thee Oh Sees’ (QRO album review) "Maria Stacks", there’s no other way to hear the single by single evolution of Segall’s sound without a stack of tiny and by now very valuable records. By track 20 (!) we’re entering unreleased demo territory, including a couple of drum machine meltdown experiments, "Shoot You in The Head" and an early inception of "Drag".
This is an impressive collection of obscenely great music that’s a reminder of just how far Ty Segall has come already. From the beginning the ingredients haven’t really changed, it’s Segall’s ability to discover completely new guitar tones, bordering on atonal distortion, and apply them to his howling blues-pop. This collection is also the story of the rise of the micro-label. From Chocolate Covered Records, Trouble in Mind, to Infinity Cat and Goner, these are the most forward looking labels, who jumped at the chance to put out something by the prolific Segall and add their names to the growing list of benefactors. These songs are proof that reinventing the formula isn’t necessary, there’s still more to be done with the untouchable elements of blues standards, if you’re as original as Ty Segall.
MP3 Stream: "Where We Go"
