July 2025
Drag City DC-915CD
Format: CD
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
Songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Ty Segall has released one album per year since his eponymous debut in 2008. He’s also a member of the bands Fuzz, GØGGS, and the C.I.A., and has appeared on their records. Segall has a strong experimental streak and has explored numerous styles and approaches to recording. Love Rudiments is a percussion album, “Hello, Hi” is largely composed of acoustic-guitar tunes, and Freedom’s Goblin embraces all manner of rock genres and sounds.
Segall’s music, even the grungy, overdriven Emotional Mugger (2016), is firmly grounded in melody, and that’s especially the case with his newest album, Possession. Acoustic guitar, snappy bass, and bright snare-drum accents help bring in “Shoplifter,” but strings soon enter to fill things out and reinforce Segall’s flowing melodic lines. The arrangement comes together as background vocals firm up the second verse; as the song builds, the strings intensify and become grander. The song’s final section features a sax and guitar duet, and closes with an a cappella harmony chorus.
Most of the songs on Possession are built around Segall’s skilled guitar-playing, but the album employs a rich palette of effects, instruments, and voices. The title track is built on a series of ear-catching guitar riffs that suggest 1970s glam rock, but a horn arrangement pulls the song in another direction. A slashing guitar solo at the close of the song is carried along by driving guitars, piano, and drums. “The Big Day” opens with a familiar David Bowie guitar riff, slightly altered, that it soon discards for layers of guitars, horns, and drums with an even harder edge. A piano deep in the background reaches out in the dense mix of guitars, moving ever closer to the surface until the song’s close.
The crunchy guitar on the first verse of “Skirts of Heaven” soon gives way to a glorious string arrangement on the second verse. The bridge of the tune adds horns and beautifully complex harmony vocals. “Fantastic Tomb” is a tour through ’70s guitar styles, from the James Gang to T. Rex, with a side trip to Ziggy Stardust. Possession uses string arrangements to a greater degree than other Segall albums. There are no guitars on “Hotel,” which relies on the strings to provide a dark and compelling background for Segall’s vocals. “Alive” has an acoustic-guitar accompaniment, but strings create a propulsive, driving riff that carries the song forward.
Segall often plays most of the instruments on his recordings. On Possession, he played everything but the strings and horns, which were arranged by Mikal Cronin and played by musicians brought in for the sessions. Segall is a virtuoso guitarist, but he is also talented and distinctive on bass, drums, and keys. Each track on the album is carefully constructed and intricately assembled, with every instrument and voice playing an important role.
Filmmaker Matt Yoka cowrote the lyrics for most of the tracks on Possession with Segall. The songs tell stories of people in strange and desperate situations doing odd things. The girl in “Shoplifter” is driven to steal by bad economic conditions (“Rent’s unstable / She can’t afford a bed”). A chance encounter in a bar leads to an attempted robbery in “Fantastic Tomb,” and things turn very dark when the narrator is locked, perhaps forever, in a basement. The title track, for which Yoka wrote the lyrics, evokes the events of the Salem witch trials.
Segall recorded and mixed Possession at his home studio in California. It sounds terrific. Drums ring out soundly, bass attack is clean but powerful, and the harmonic fullness of the arrangements and vocal harmonies register fully. It’s easy to pick out small details in the recording that add to a richly satisfying listen.
There are plenty of familiar influences on Possession in addition to some I’ve already mentioned. There’s a healthy dose of late-period Beatles in the harmony vocals, and, given that Segall is from southern California, I’m not surprised to hear the Beach Boys here and there, too. But Segall is a highly individual songwriter who combines his influences in fresh ways. He’s a classicist, but his music isn’t time-bound or nostalgic.
Ty Segall is also unpredictable. He’s demonstrated a need to shift gears from album to album, so it’s hard to know what his next album will sound like. I’m eager to hear it.
. . . Joseph Taylor
