Ty Segall Is a Slave to the “Radio” on Hypnotic New First Taste Single
Photo by Denée Segall
Mad sound scientist Ty Segall has shared another new song from his forthcoming First Taste ahead of the album’s Aug. 2 release on Drag City. “Radio” foregrounds the koto, the national instrument of Japan, with blaring saxophone and thunderous percussion all cohering into a real romper-stomper of an out-of-body experience.
“‘Radio’ is a science non-fiction song,” says Segall of his new single. “We live in a Cronenberg film. It has Videodrome saxoheadphones. I am a slave to the new radio and so are you.”
Segall himself plays koto on “Radio,” accompanied by his Freedom Band compatriots: Mikal Cronin contributes sax and piano, with Emmett Kelly on bass, and Segall and Charles Moothart on percussion and drums. Los Angeles-based singer-songwriter Shannon Lay adds back-up vocals.
The song’s muscular, symphonic instrumentation adds a sinister edge to Segall’s peaceful assimilation into a new identity: He’s content “watching people die all night long on the radio,” singing, “My anger has gone away / Replaced by my new name / I’m no longer empty / I need no family / The light is the truth.” Whose, we wonder?
The follow-up to 2018’s Freedom’s Goblin finds Segall and his collaborators experimenting with a far-flung array of instruments, from the koto and bouzouki to the recorder and dual drum kits (“Segall on the left, Moothart on the right,” a press release specifies). If “Radio” is any indication, the melding of all that divergent instrumentation is an alchemy bordering on magic.
Segall & The Freedom Band will perform First Taste in full during their upcoming residencies at the Teragram Ballroom in Los Angeles (Fridays from July 26-Sept. 27) and Warsaw in Brooklyn (Oct. 1-5), alongside other select records from Segall’s copious catalog. Support on these dates comes from a variety of artists, including King Tuff (solo), DMBQ, Lamps, Ruth Garber and White Fence.