Ty Segall rides back in with his 16th album, Possession, to be released May 30th via Drag City, and with today’s announcement, releases the lead single,“Fantastic Tomb.” Following 2024’s Three Bells, Possession sees Ty on the hunt for new horizons, hitting the trail beneath the big skies of our frontier empire to take us on a high-octane narrative journey. A literary set of lyrics co-written by his longtime collaborator, filmmaker Matt Yoka, paint an abiding view of quintessentially American stories. All the while, there are invigorated new sounds around every bend – glittering rhythm arrangements feature more of Ty’s own piano woodshedding than ever, joined in battle by sweeping movements of strings and horns. Rife with singing guitar leads and banks of Ty’s vocal harmonies, Possession features some of Ty’s most inspired songs to date. Tapping Yoka to write with him was one of the keys to this new music. As a non-musician, Yoka’s language sense is different from the one Ty’s amassed as a player of music. With the trust they’ve developed over the years — brainstorming the visual worlds of Goodbye Bread, Manipulator, Emotional Mugger, and music of Yoka’s Whirlybird documentary — they throw the conceptual ball back and forth to translate a general feeling or a vibe into wicked lyric imagery, each acting as writer and editor in the process. Be it de Toqueville, duBois, George H. Nash, Howard Zinn, Bob Dylan or Smile-era Beach Boys, Ty’s sharpened narrative approach and storytelling takes a page from everyone’s history. Today’s single, “Fantastic Tomb,” is an epic story-song. Desperate for something he can hold onto, our hero takes a job hitting the house of “a man worth more than a country could make,” only to find the treasure hunt to be just another ride to nowhere. The song is a modern American noir-cum-classic rock hoedown, scored with Ty’s burnt-filament lead guitar and ingeniously sealed with Mikal Cronin’s saxophone section. Possession is Ty Segall’s own bizarre traversing of the American landscape, taking back alleys through complicated cityscapes and singing about the end of the rope while resisting defeat — suggesting an ecstatic new empire to build as he cruises the countryside. 

It’s the 21st century man —we’re way past the feudal phase! Yet, somehow, some people still radiate their noble bearing, no matter where they are — just as certain songs are clearly meant to sing from the turrets still. In this fashion, and with high-collared coat turned up against the cruel wind, White Fence emerge from their high aerie to display a shining array of royal jewels each time they unveil a new pop album to the world. The gliss and glitter that sounds forth from For the Recently Found Innocent has a shine all its own, and for Reasons too. For the Recently Found Innocent is many things — the fifth White Fence album, the first White Fence album to be recorded outside the bedroom fence (with live drumming!), the first White Fence record to be produced for Drag City. Plus also, a sophomore pump: the second time that Tim Presley and Ty Segall have met to record music (does anyone remember Hair?), this time pure and simply committed in the name of White Fence. Inevitably, the collision at the intersection of all these winding roads is a beautiful pileup of deep impacts, graceful lines and open space embodied in sound, White on White, compacted for your eyes and ears to believe. In the tale of For the Recently Found Innocent, Tim Presley has succeeded in bringing his signature role, that of the hissing reptilian wraith, to the magnesium screen. Moving with the sidewalks in the first rippling of the light, our gimlet-eyed hero is steeped in the time-honored practice of hand-eye coordination known as ‘rhythmatism’; master of verbal acrobatics (always sticking the landing) and palm-reading melodies, where he proves uncannily prescient in tracing where the lifeline goes as moves it through the path of verse-chorus-bridge-et al. White Fence’s previous release, Cyclops Reap, demonstrated a process being executed at the top of its game (which, we know, is NOT a game). For the Recently Found Innocent surges forth with fresh set of elaborately crafted songs, harmony vocalizations and trippin’ guitar tones that strike the face and viscera with an equal (easy) blow. White Fence conjure a fantasy about reality, of the world as it is and should always be; their songs are alterna-hits played out in green sun, in blue air, on repeat, relentless, RIGHTEOUS in the privacy of front-parlor and yes, bedroom — White Fence, full-circle, from the cradle to the grave! One listen to For the Recently Found Innocent and (y)our faith is still growing.

The new Lavender Flu album, "Mow the Glass", was recorded in the living room of a small house on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. You can hear it in the music. The Oregon Coast. The dream life of an Axolotl. The open sound of a band playing to an audience of endless water, sun, and sky.  A bald eagle flew by the window every few hours; as if to remind the band where they really were. Still, the laughter was real, the freedom was magic, and the tambo was sprinkled like sugar.  "Heavy Air", the previous album, was a home recording project. The songs started with Chris on a guitar or a synth or a bowl of cereal and were built up from there. A rotating cast of friends and family helped flesh out the material. It could have been made in deep space or at the bottom of the ocean. Transmissions from a bedroom at the bottom of Pill Hill.  "Mow The Glass" is a reflection of the live experience. Four people playing together; working within the template of pop classicism. 35 minutes of music. This time, the Flu comes out of the water and spends a little more time on land: pop kicks, psychedelic derangement, beauty, spells cast via hate raga and rocker. The band moves backward, forward and sideways; often within the same piece. The music breathes. It doesn't deal in nostalgic regression or self conscious futurism. It just sounds like the Lavender Flu.  Or maybe Ursula K. Le Guin whispering to James Tiptree Jr. in heaven: Follow the Flowers. They lead to a field of knives. Look to the Sewer. It's there where your teacher lies.  This music will crawl through your mind. Palpitating off the walls of incandescent android phone lights and lonely aching web pages. Streaming through reverse lives, lost in endless coded corridors, hallucinating connections to other humans via bitrate embrace.  The enemy is everywhere.   Mow the Glass. Return to me.   Chakra Mike - Yachats, OR - January 2018