Ty Segall, for all of his versatility and the abundance of his work over the last fifteen years, tends to follow a very simple pattern. Every year or so, he releases a truly great album, with a lot of pleasant and sometimes very good filler between. At least that was the pattern until 2018’s Freedom’s Goblin. Since then, he’s come close a few times but has yet to contribute an album that belongs in the same sentence as Hair, Sleeper, and Manipulator. Hello, Hi is the comeback, for lack of a better word, even if it only comes a mere four years after Goblin. Segall seems less concerned with pigeonholing himself into any sort of thematic schtick, and more importantly, focuses his efforts on his songwriting and the immediacy of his performances.
That is imperative given the acoustic nature of many of these tracks, and Segall brings back the charming and abstract introspection that he’s consistently honed on his “softer” releases. Also of note though, is the creaky mummer of the home recordings. Segall delivers even the roughest tracks, with a wistful and breezy attitude, one that in lesser hands would come off as slight, but given the strength of this batch of songs, is instead illuminating. As an album, Hello, Hi shoots for a back-to-basics approach, finding a simple mood that echoes Segall himself, stressing intimacy over theatrics, something that too often gets lost in his maximalist tendencies. Take the closing moments of “Saturday Pt. 2”, even as the song builds towards its cathartic, horn-addled conclusion, it never escapes the palpability of its visceral inclusivity. Yes, Segall is playing with the same dynamics he’s built his career on, but he’s never sounded this welcoming, or at least not in a long time.
