Latest news with #TySegall
Mint
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Mint
King Gizzard are contemporary music's premier shape-shifters
To call King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard a rock band is like describing the Marvel Cinematic Universe as just a film franchise. While that's technically true, they're also so much more—this generation's answer to Phish and the Grateful Dead; a band so prolific that Pitchfork once called them 'a vinyl pressing plant in human form"; contemporary music's most mind-bending musical shape-shifters; and the architects of a thriving DIY economy based on free culture ideals. Wild-eyed and perpetually restless, the Australian experimental rock sextet delight in chaos and subversion. And, perhaps, in watching hapless music critics try to encapsulate their massive oeuvre without having a full-on breakdown. Maybe I should just start from the beginning. King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard—we'll call them Gizz for short—started out in 2010 as a psychedelic garage-rock band, firmly in the tradition of Ty Segall and Down Under contemporaries Thee Oh Sees. But things quickly got weirder. And then weirder still. Over the course of the next decade-and-a-half, the band would travel far and wide from their garage-rock roots, experimenting with krautrock, dream-pop, heavy metal, modular-synth prog, acid-friend spoken word, and too many other genres to name. Let me run you through just a four-album run to give you a sense of the whiplash their discography can induce. The Beatles-meets-Brubeck jazz-fusion of Quarters! leads somehow into the acoustic, bossa-nova inflected freak-folk of Paper Mâché Dream Balloon. Follow-up Nonagon Infinity—their breakthrough record—returns to scuzzy, lo-fi garage-rock before Flying Microtonal Banana takes a hard-left turn into Middle-East inspired microtonal riffs and a blasting chorus of Turkish horns. That one band could play such wildly different types of music—and do it well—is already amazing. The fact that all four albums came out within a single two-year period simply boggles the mind. Which brings me to the other problem one faces when trying to explain Gizz to the unfamiliar—the sheer volume of their output. Since their first full-length in 2022, the band have put out 27 studio albums, not counting the innumerable EPs, remix albums, live albums, and official bootlegs. They've managed to put out five studio albums within a calendar year not just once, but twice. The band's hulking discography can make them seem intimidating or a novelty act to newcomers. But for the band's hardcore fans—who call themselves The Weird Swarm and follow the band around on tours like GenZ deadheads—this commitment to exploring every creative idea, giving space and energy to every contrarian flight of musical fantasy, is what makes them so uniquely special. It does raise one question though—how long can they keep it up? How long before fatigue or the seductive inertia of commercial success saps them of their ability to constantly subvert and surprise? Judging by Phantom Island—their latest full length, released last month—they're in no danger of running out of steam just yet. The 10 songs on this album were originally written and recorded during the sessions for last year's Flight b741, an album full of crunchy roots rock riffs, rollicking boogie grooves and dark, paranoid lyrics about depression, suicide and the end of the world. When they returned to these songs to finish them a little while later, the band felt that they sounded a little unfinished. So they sent the songs to LA Philharmonic Orchestra conductor Chad Kelly—whom they'd recently met and befriended—and asked him for an orchestral glow-up. Kelly wrote new arrangements for the songs, and put together a 24-member orchestra to dub over the original recordings. The end result is an album that combines country-fried choogle and Philadelphia soul with lush orchestrations of strings, woodwinds and horns. Think a weirder, freakier Electric Light Orchestra, or a less bombastic Chicago. The opening title track begins with jazzy, AOR-adjacent layers of piano, violin and horns, before accelerating into a full-blown freakout in the final third. Deadstick is an irresistibly catchy chunk of Southern boogie-rock fortified by blasts of grandiloquent horns. Panpsych opens with solo flute and guitar in frisky interplay, before finding it's—rich, cosmic, eminently danceable—groove. Standout cut Spacesick channels David Bowie in both its cinematic arrangements of strings and crescendoing horns, and lyrical conceit (its protagonist is an astronaut looking down at the Earth from his spaceship). At its best, the band's blend of soul-ified psychedelia, 1970s rock and orchestral flourishes elevates these tracks to euphoric, earworm-worthy highs. But the fact that these songs weren't originally written for orchestral accompaniment means that sometimes the combination falls flat, as on the meandering, overstuffed Silent Spirit, or Eternal Return, which sounds like it's being pulled in two opposite directions. Elsewhere, like on the otherwise beautiful baroque pop of Lonely Cosmos, the strings seem almost superfluous, only really making their presence felt in the intro and outro without engaging with the song substantially. But even when things don't quite click, the results are interesting and ambitious enough to be worthwhile. Phantom Island may not be as visionary or ground-breaking as some of the other records in their catalogue, but it's still a whole lot of fun. It also makes me want to see what the band can achieve if they properly collaborate with an orchestra, bringing them in at the compositional stage rather than at the last minute. Knowing them, though, the next record will be another left-field turn. Will they venture into noise-punk territory next? Or maybe even rap? I have no idea. But I do know that whatever they get up to, I'll be tuning in. If only to see whether they can keep getting away with it. Bhanuj Kappal is a Mumbai-based writer.
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
12 New Albums You Should Listen to Now: Miley Cyrus, Ty Segall, and More
All products featured on Pitchfork are independently selected by Pitchfork editors. However, when you buy something through our retail links, Condé Nast may earn an affiliate commission. Miley Cyrus, February 2025 (Kevin Mazur/Peacock via Getty Images) With so much good music being released all the time, it can be hard to determine what to listen to first. Every week, Pitchfork offers a run-down of significant new releases available on streaming services. This week's batch includes new albums from Miley Cyrus; Ty Segall; Caroline; Heinali & Andriana-Yaroslava Saienko; Matt Berninger; Shura; Yeule; Aesop Rock; Obongjayar; Qasim Naqvi; Rome Streetz & Conductor Williams; and Photographic Memory. Subscribe to Pitchfork's New Music Friday newsletter to get our recommendations in your inbox every week. (All releases featured here are independently selected by our editors. When you buy something through our affiliate links, however, Pitchfork earns an affiliate commission.) After winning the Record of the Year Grammy for 'Flowers' last year, Miley Cyrus took a logical next step that so often eludes pop stars at the highest level: She leaned into her weirdest, most experimental impulses for an album that panders to nobody but herself. Enter Something Beautiful, a wily pop opus with contributions from a diverse array of indie artists. Executive-produced by Cyrus and Shawn Everett, the sprawling album balances its outré intentions by keeping a handle on the most durable pop influences—'the Beatles and Elvis and David Bowie and Prince like Madonna, these are all pop artists,' Cyrus told Apple Music. Listen on Apple Music Listen on Spotify Listen on Tidal Listen on Amazon Music Buy at Rough Trade Possession isn't the usual Ty Segall record as of late. The longtime psych-rock staple co-wrote the album with filmmaker Matt Yoka to be a collection of American stories about hopeless kleptomaniacs, urban explorers, and other people who slip through the cracks. Segall sounds looser and sunnier on these songs, harkening back to his older sound while allowing the vibrancy of Yoka's imagination—which previously took shape solely in the visual world of Segall's albums Goodbye Bread, Manipulator, and Emotional Mugger—to lead toward low-heat grooves ('Fantastic Tomb') and Bowie-style classic rock ('Possession') when it may. Listen on Apple Music Listen on Spotify Listen on Tidal Listen on Amazon Music Listen/Buy at Bandcamp Buy at Rough Trade Caroline's debut album built an outpost at the intersection between post-rock, emo, and campfire folk. Three years later, the follow-up, Caroline 2, expands outward in every direction, pairing scraggy, strummed chorales with heart-on-sleeve mantras and distorted furore. The London octet enlisted Caroline Polachek for lead single 'Tell Me I Never Knew That,' one of many moments that feels like the work of not just a band but a community. 'The first record was a compilation, but this one is a declaration,' as singer-guitarist Jasper Llewellyn put it in press materials. Listen on Apple Music Listen on Spotify Listen on Tidal Listen on Amazon Music Listen/Buy at Bandcamp Buy at Rough Trade Ukrainian composer and avant-garde electronic musician Heinali has spent the past few years contributing to the growing trend of fusing electronic music with medieval folk. On Гільдеґарда, the album recorded from his new show with Andriana-Yaroslava Saienko, he draws from the work of Hildegard von Bingen to explore further the intersection of those genres. The 12th-century abbess, composer, philosopher, and visionary becomes a thrilling subject when backed by modular synths, Ukrainian folk singing, and high medieval music. Listen on Apple Music Listen on Spotify Listen on Tidal Listen on Amazon Music Listen/Buy at Bandcamp The National's Matt Berninger made his second solo album, Get Sunk, around his move from Los Angeles to Connecticut. After a period of writers' block—and a sense he was 'drowning' in his own voice—he cracked open a new songwriting idiom, before assembling musicians including Booker T. Jones, Hand Habits' Meg Duffy, National touring member Kyle Resnick, and members of the Walkmen, mostly recording with Berninger in a basement. 'Our heart's are like old wells filled with pennies and worms,' he said of the album's themes. 'I can't resist going down to the bottom of mine to see what else is there. But sometimes you can get yourself stuck.' Listen on Apple Music Listen on Spotify Listen on Tidal Listen on Amazon Music Listen/Buy at Bandcamp Buy at Rough Trade Shura glides between rallying and confessional synth-pop on I Got Too Sad for My Friends, the six-years-coming follow-up to Forevher. The British singer-songwriter applies her lithe pop sensibility to topics such as social anxiety, pandemic isolation, and, as ever, the tumult of love on the Luke Smith–produced album, which features guest turns from Cassandra Jenkins, Helado Negro, and Becca Mancari. Listen on Apple Music Listen on Spotify Listen on Tidal Listen on Amazon Music Listen/Buy at Bandcamp Buy at Rough Trade In a shapeshifter career, Evangelic Girl Is a Gun is Yeule's most disarming transformation yet. Having mastered hyperpop heaters and meteoric alt-rock, the singer-producer-songwriter summons trip-hop ooze and industrial sleaze on an album that is both a total reinvention and, on the synth-pop-grunge hybrid of songs like 'Eko,' a consolidation of the adventuring spirit that has made Yeule one of the defining artists of the decade. Listen on Apple Music Listen on Spotify Listen on Tidal Listen on Amazon Music Listen/Buy at Bandcamp Buy at Rough Trade On Black Hole Superette, Aesop Rock presents the late-night convenience store as a symbol of the modern condition. The Long Island veteran—assisted by likeminded rappers Lupe Fiasco, Homeboy Sandman, Open Mike Eagle, billy woods, and Elucid—invites us into surreal lyrical mazes as he stumbles, half-asleep, through a vortex of consumerism and encroaching tech. Watch the hallucinatory 'Checkers' video for a window into the dreamworld. Listen on Apple Music Listen on Spotify Listen on Tidal Listen on Amazon Music Listen/Buy at Bandcamp Buy at Rough Trade Paradise Now is a renewed mission statement from Obongjayar, the Nigerian musician whose hyperactive fusion of Afrobeat, soul, and hip-hop has made him a sensation in his adopted hometown of London. The album adds volleys of synth-punk and summery electropop to his eclectic palate, explored with collaborators including producer Kwes Darko, Fontaines D.C.'s Carlos O'Connell, and, on 'Talk Olympics,' Little Simz. Listen on Apple Music Listen on Spotify Listen on Tidal Listen on Amazon Music Listen/Buy at Bandcamp Buy at Rough Trade Dawn of Midi drummer Qasim Naqvi flexes his skills as a composer on his latest album for Erased Tapes, Endling. Haunted by a phrase from a dream his wife had one night—'God docks at death harbor'—the Pakistani American artist conceived of a 'tone poem' about, he's said, 'the last human on the planet—an endling, traversing a world centuries into the future. A world decayed and mutated into a strange amalgam of the natural and artificial.' Moor Mother features on the undulating ambient refractions of 'Power Down the Heart.' Listen on Apple Music Listen on Spotify Listen on Tidal Listen on Amazon Music Listen/Buy at Bandcamp Buy at Rough Trade New York rapper Rome Streetz and superstar producer Conductor Williams unite for their debut collaborative album in Trainspotting. Williams' freewheeling production snips hooks from jazz and gospel while his collaborator knots together dense verses on industry greed on the Tribe-referencing 'Rule 4080,' expanding the vintage style the pair explored on Rome Streetz's 2022 album, Kiss the Ring. Listen on Apple Music Listen on Spotify Listen on Tidal Listen on Amazon Music Photographic Memory is the solo project of Los Angeles producer, singer, and songwriter Max Epstein. I Look at Her and Light Goes All Through Me, his third album, shares some of the maximalist sensibilities of collaborators like Militarie Gun and Jane Remover, neutralizing lashings of overdriven excess with oases of introspective, melodic emo and shoegaze. Guests include Winter and Wisp. Listen on Apple Music Listen on Spotify Listen on Tidal Listen on Amazon Music Originally Appeared on Pitchfork
San Francisco Chronicle
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Music Review: Virtuosic guitarist Ty Segall finds a new sweet spot on his laid-back 'Possession'
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Much of the virtuosic guitarist Ty Segall's prolific career has been characterized by a sludgy, almost primal, intensity. But his 16th LP crystalizes a new, less-aggressive era for the indie rocker, as he trades in his additive synths for strings and horns — all while maintaining his singular garage-psych. 'Possession' isn't Segall's first album to reel in his trademark heaviness. Following the release of his 2021 record 'Harmonizer' — the apex of a Black Sabbath-inspired, electronics-assisted sound he had for years — the singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has mellowed out and gone more analog in the myriad solo projects he's released since. There was his 2022 mostly acoustic album, 'Hello, Hi,' as well as his instrumental 'Love Rudiments,' an avant-garde, percussion-focused record, which he dropped less than a year ago. But with 'Possession,' Segall seems to have found a kind of sweet spot that balances force with restraint in this new phase of his discography. His signature psychedelic sound and distorted guitar solos are still there, like in 'Shining' and the album's title track. But the songs are also subdued and refined, with a surprising arrangement of strings and horns on songs like 'Skirts of Heaven' and 'Shoplifter.' Despite that addition of new instruments, there's a kind of back-to-basics sound to the record, bringing to mind the soulful, easy-listening rock bands of the '70s like Cheap Trick and Steely Dan. This album also marks a lyrical shift, thanks in part to the fact that he co-wrote it with his longtime friend, documentary filmmaker Matt Yoka. He brings a clear narrative framework to Segall's poetic, sometimes opaque, writing style. 'Neighbors' daughter sentenced dead / her toes directed downward / The washer woman a victim too / the village's obsession,' Segall croons of witch trials on 'Possession,' the only song on the album which Yoka wrote solo. That emphasis on storytelling also brings a kind of depth to the songs, which often wade into poignant themes like, mortality and success, topics not often overtly broached on Segall's previous records. 'What you gonna do when the money's gone / And everyone you know is dead,' Segall sings on 'Fantastic Tomb.' 'When you're standing naked on the lawn / You think about the life you led.' And while he brings in highbrow instruments like cellos, pianos and trumpets, there is plenty of discordance. It matches the existential dread of songs like 'Buildings' and 'Alive.' And yet, the album maintains a kind of laid-back sensibility in comparison to much of Segall's earlier work. Last year while promoting his 14th solo LP, 'Three Bells,' Segall told The Associated Press that he was trying to be less prolific. He's since recorded an album under a new band with Color Green's Corey Madden, Freckle, as well as two more solo LP's, including 'Possession.' ___
Hamilton Spectator
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Hamilton Spectator
Music Review: Virtuosic guitarist Ty Segall finds a new sweet spot on his laid-back ‘Possession'
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Much of the virtuosic guitarist Ty Segall's prolific career has been characterized by a sludgy, almost primal, intensity. But his 16th LP crystalizes a new, less-aggressive era for the indie rocker, as he trades in his additive synths for strings and horns — all while maintaining his singular garage-psych. 'Possession' isn't Segall's first album to reel in his trademark heaviness. Following the release of his 2021 record 'Harmonizer' — the apex of a Black Sabbath-inspired, electronics-assisted sound he had for years — the singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has mellowed out and gone more analog in the myriad solo projects he's released since. There was his 2022 mostly acoustic album, 'Hello, Hi,' as well as his instrumental 'Love Rudiments,' an avant-garde, percussion-focused record, which he dropped less than a year ago. But with 'Possession,' Segall seems to have found a kind of sweet spot that balances force with restraint in this new phase of his discography. His signature psychedelic sound and distorted guitar solos are still there, like in 'Shining' and the album's title track. But the songs are also subdued and refined, with a surprising arrangement of strings and horns on songs like 'Skirts of Heaven' and 'Shoplifter.' Despite that addition of new instruments, there's a kind of back-to-basics sound to the record, bringing to mind the soulful, easy-listening rock bands of the '70s like Cheap Trick and Steely Dan. This album also marks a lyrical shift, thanks in part to the fact that he co-wrote it with his longtime friend, documentary filmmaker Matt Yoka. He brings a clear narrative framework to Segall's poetic, sometimes opaque, writing style. 'Neighbors' daughter sentenced dead / her toes directed downward / The washer woman a victim too / the village's obsession,' Segall croons of witch trials on 'Possession,' the only song on the album which Yoka wrote solo. That emphasis on storytelling also brings a kind of depth to the songs, which often wade into poignant themes like, mortality and success, topics not often overtly broached on Segall's previous records. 'What you gonna do when the money's gone / And everyone you know is dead,' Segall sings on 'Fantastic Tomb.' 'When you're standing naked on the lawn / You think about the life you led.' And while he brings in highbrow instruments like cellos, pianos and trumpets, there is plenty of discordance. It matches the existential dread of songs like 'Buildings' and 'Alive.' And yet, the album maintains a kind of laid-back sensibility in comparison to much of Segall's earlier work. Last year while promoting his 14th solo LP, 'Three Bells,' Segall told The Associated Press that he was trying to be less prolific. He's since recorded an album under a new band with Color Green's Corey Madden, Freckle, as well as two more solo LP's, including 'Possession.' Segall's failed resolution is to the benefit of his fans, even as he pushes himself into creative directions he's yet to go before. ___ For more AP reviews of recent music releases, visit:
Winnipeg Free Press
27-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Music Review: Virtuosic guitarist Ty Segall finds a new sweet spot on his laid-back ‘Possession'
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Much of the virtuosic guitarist Ty Segall's prolific career has been characterized by a sludgy, almost primal, intensity. But his 16th LP crystalizes a new, less-aggressive era for the indie rocker, as he trades in his additive synths for strings and horns — all while maintaining his singular garage-psych. 'Possession' isn't Segall's first album to reel in his trademark heaviness. Following the release of his 2021 record 'Harmonizer' — the apex of a Black Sabbath-inspired, electronics-assisted sound he had for years — the singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist has mellowed out and gone more analog in the myriad solo projects he's released since. There was his 2022 mostly acoustic album, 'Hello, Hi,' as well as his instrumental 'Love Rudiments,' an avant-garde, percussion-focused record, which he dropped less than a year ago. But with 'Possession,' Segall seems to have found a kind of sweet spot that balances force with restraint in this new phase of his discography. His signature psychedelic sound and distorted guitar solos are still there, like in 'Shining' and the album's title track. But the songs are also subdued and refined, with a surprising arrangement of strings and horns on songs like 'Skirts of Heaven' and 'Shoplifter.' Despite that addition of new instruments, there's a kind of back-to-basics sound to the record, bringing to mind the soulful, easy-listening rock bands of the '70s like Cheap Trick and Steely Dan. This album also marks a lyrical shift, thanks in part to the fact that he co-wrote it with his longtime friend, documentary filmmaker Matt Yoka. He brings a clear narrative framework to Segall's poetic, sometimes opaque, writing style. 'Neighbors' daughter sentenced dead / her toes directed downward / The washer woman a victim too / the village's obsession,' Segall croons of witch trials on 'Possession,' the only song on the album which Yoka wrote solo. That emphasis on storytelling also brings a kind of depth to the songs, which often wade into poignant themes like, mortality and success, topics not often overtly broached on Segall's previous records. 'What you gonna do when the money's gone / And everyone you know is dead,' Segall sings on 'Fantastic Tomb.' 'When you're standing naked on the lawn / You think about the life you led.' And while he brings in highbrow instruments like cellos, pianos and trumpets, there is plenty of discordance. It matches the existential dread of songs like 'Buildings' and 'Alive.' And yet, the album maintains a kind of laid-back sensibility in comparison to much of Segall's earlier work. Last year while promoting his 14th solo LP, 'Three Bells,' Segall told The Associated Press that he was trying to be less prolific. He's since recorded an album under a new band with Color Green's Corey Madden, Freckle, as well as two more solo LP's, including 'Possession.' Segall's failed resolution is to the benefit of his fans, even as he pushes himself into creative directions he's yet to go before. ___ For more AP reviews of recent music releases, visit:
