photo credit: Denee Segall
by Rainy Maple Sugar Candy (@hpfblog)
The sky is thick and gray in Providence, Rhode Island. It’s clear that all hell is going to break loose at any moment. I don’t have an umbrella but this is a risk I’m willing to take. I’ve got to get out of the office for a bit… and I really want some jelly beans. Don’t ask me why jelly beans or why today. I hardly ever eat candy and I know my guts are going to protest, but the heart wants what the heart wants. I’ve also just gotten my grubby little elder millennial hands on Love Rudiments, Ty Segall’s new percussion record that I’ve been dying to hear, so going for a walk will be the perfect time to start listening. I’ve loaded the tracks onto the SD card of my Nokia 2780 flip phone where Gmail and Facebook can’t find me. Into my pants pocket it goes, joining my oversized My Little Pony wallet that is just as impractical as it is cute and nostalgic; another one of my colorful, irresistible desires. Headphones on, I head out.
We meet, this record and I, as if we had just come walking briskly down different streets and startled each other at the corner. Curious bells, chimes, and cymbals… nearly instantaneous intrigue. If I had a latte I’d have sloshed it onto my shoes. The tension in the cool, slightly breezy it’s-about-to-downpour air around me suddenly makes perfect sense as if a loose speaker wire has just been nudged fully into place. As I continue on, the rhythm builds and shifts, giving me new wave Pink Panther vibes until finally releasing into an easy rock beat under a shaker, shaker, shaker, shaker… I breathe out.
RMSC: Had you been thinking about making a percussion record for a while or was this a recent and impulsive idea like everything else drummers allegedly do?
TS: I had been toying with the idea of doing a strictly drum record for a few years, but it was the down time during COVID that really gave my mind the space to try to make it happen. And luckily I have a studio, so the idea of experimenting on a project like this wasn't nearly as stressful because the studio time was free. Matt Littlejohn, who produced the record with me, helped figure out what percussion instruments would work, and it was all pretty planned out from the start.
RMSC: Tell me a bit about how these pieces were composed. I’m curious about how much of the music you brought into the studio with you and how much developed once you got there.
TS: None of the music was composed beforehand. It was all pretty much improvised, overdubbed, and then edited together. Often after trying something I would get more of an idea and redo a take or concept in order to fit into an edit or suite of music. The concept came together too after the first two days of recording.
RMSC: I can’t decide if I want to call this a jazz record or not. Do you think it’s a jazz record?
TS: I would say it's definitely influenced and informed by jazz and other percussion-heavy music. One major part of that I think is the voicing of the percussion instruments. I always listen to instrumental music as if the instruments themselves are "voices"... (in my mind that's literal: I hear the instruments singing the vocal melodies) and I wanted to do that with this record.
The comforting familiarity of the rock beat leading out of track one has gone. Sparse, elusive sounds are at play now. We’re really getting to know each other, but not without some trepidation. It will soon be party time. This track is much longer than the last, split into more distinct movements, and it lasts the entirety of my time in CVS. I realize that I am absentmindedly shaking my bag of jelly beans along with the music. I am locked in, but emotionally rattled. I keep one earphone on while I pay at the register, but I stop shaking the bag. Stormy tympani (though not the underwater-sounding mini-tympani [???] from earlier) lead me back out onto the street to regain my composure.
RMSC: When I read the description of Love Rudiments having been played on your “first love: the drums,” it made me curious, thinking about your broader songwriting approach. You have released a huge body of work over the years across all sorts of sounds and styles, but one constant is this use of texture and layering instruments and especially rhythms in a really exciting way. There’s often “a lot going on” in the best sense; lots of motion. I am a lifelong drummer-first myself and I know that I approach songwriting now with what I call “drummer brain.” To me that means looking at both the whole song and its components fundamentally as an interplay of spaces and moments, like LEGO bricks... It’s hard to describe precisely, but from my experience it’s always seemed to be distinct from how songwriters who don’t play the drums approach things. Does this resonate (pun intended) at all with you? I feel pretty confident in diagnosing you with drummer brain but I’d love to hear about what you think the relationship between rhythm and your general songwriting instincts might be.
TS: I do have a drummer brain. I almost always think of songs with the rhythm in mind when I am writing them - and sometimes I write the drums first just because a beat or feeling is so important. But, on the other hand I always like to mix it up, so sometimes I force myself to ignore the rhythm while writing. It's really all over the place for me, but yes the beat is fundamental. It's movement. It's undeniable. But if the beat isn't right, that's a problem!
A wise person once said, “It’s party time until it’s not party time anymore.” At least, I imagine that someone, somewhere has said that. I’ve said it now. Regardless, a lot can happen in just under thirteen minutes. And happen, it will. If you’re not prepared, you just may be left reeling, trying to remember which kick drum you left your heart in. Out of nowhere… beep beep beep… A metronome? Life support? It’s party time until it’s not party time anymore.
RMSC: Speaking of all that fun texture, one of the first things I noticed listening on headphones was the sense of positioning created by the way the instruments are mixed and panned, clearly very intentionally. The relationships between sounds feel so satisfying, like binaural beats-level itch scratching. Tell me a bit about your approach to mixing this one and what you were hoping to accomplish.
TS: I think the mixing of this record focused a bit more on the use of "space" because there was no human voice. Things could be a little more buried in the mix than they would be for let’s say a rock song because nothing was there to get in the way. A completely unique sonic mixing experience. It was interesting what we could get away with doing because there weren't any guitars or other kinds of bright musical voices taking up space. And I love going nuts with panning and all the bells and whistles (literally and figuratively) so I had fun.
RMSC: I’m really interested in the balance of acoustic and electronic sounds here. Overall it seems like the use of electronics increases somewhat as the record goes on. I don’t know if it’s correlation or causation here but from where I’m sitting, that occurs right alongside the increasing tension and severity in this relationship. How did you think about the use of electronics and their roles throughout the record?
TS: It's true the electronics get more prevalent as the record progresses. I think I just felt we needed not only a modern sound to add, but something that could hit both the really low and really high registers (where lets say a bass and a guitar would sit) that seemed to be missing. There is a tension that's supposed to build - but also a release, a come down if you will. I envisioned a balance and contentment at the end of the record between all of the musical voices. There are specific sounds that represent characters and feelings/ emotions/ actions. The electronics definitely play into that.
I’m back at the office. I have so much to think about. Just as I take my seat, I hear the sky burst open outside. All hell has broken loose but somehow things feel calmer now. Perhaps it’s because I’ve taken the journey I needed to take… and now I’ve got jelly beans.
RMSC: In the final piece, simply called “Love Rudiments,” some really interesting things are going on. The tubular bells; those appear in other places on the record, but here they have a distinctly buzzy reverberation in the space. Then joining the bells, a kick drum-esque sound enters that feels gritty and nearly blown out, like if it came up much more it might clip. Both of these sounds are giving me a little anxiety here. What I’m getting from this piece is a “hindsight is 20/20” vibe more than a denouement, as if we’re debriefing on the relationship after it’s ended, with the rose-colored glasses shattered on the sidewalk. The sounds are so exposed. I feel exposed. Tell me about this final piece. Since we’ve already had our “resolution” with the track before it, what role does this one play?
TS: Well I don't really like to explain things in a definitive way when it comes to a piece like this. I love that you have your own interpretation of it. But to me, it's more of a "now we're bouncing along living life" - an almost coda and meditation. It's funny, the sounds that give you anxiety sound happy to me - or at least almost silly. Personally I don't see the glasses shattered on the sidewalk. But maybe they were left on the table in the dining room earlier in the record...
And to me there is a happy ending. The relationship is still going.
RMSC: So now I have to ask. Was there a particular relationship on your mind throughout this project?
TS: Not really. I just wanted to express what I felt that "story" was - and leave it open to interpretation.
RMSC: Any thoughts about this record being performed live one day? I can promise you right now that there are some university percussion ensemble leaders out there who can’t wait to chart this one for their senior project.
TS: I don't know. I would probably say not. It's going to take so much work, and would need a lot of interest for us to get it together. That would be incredible if someone charted this out!
RMSC: Fuck your Zodiac sign. What time signature are you in?
TS: Damn. I have no time signature.
RMSC: Anything else you’d like to tell The People?
TS: Peace.
Love Rudiments is available now via Drag City, as is Ty Segall’s January 2024 record, Three Bells, and more.