Neil Young once wrote that “you’ve got to crawl to be tall.” This line, musing upon the idea that one must experience infancy before mastery, echoes infinitely across Ty Segall’s suddenly-released, 12th solo studio record, Harmonizer: a surprisingly electronic-focused and groove-oriented album weaved from the sketchy fibers reminiscent of Emotional Mugger and First Taste. While Ty literally recalls Neil’s lyric on the washy, alien-horror track “Erased”, the line serves as some sort of inadvertent guiding light as he moves headfirst into drum machine and synthesizer territory previously unexplored at this depth.
Harmonizer reflects unavoidably upon the sci-fi impossibility of our last 16 months, a record developed in a live, performance-less setting that fuels its other-planetary aura. Seated 4-ish records removed from what many have referred to as Ty’s last “psych rock” record and comfortably into the Freedom Band era of his career, Harmonizer leans heavily into his recent obsessions with vocal-forward songwriting (2017’s Ty Segall) and rhythm-based experimental instrumentation (2019’s First Taste). But firmly in its crosshairs is the Eventide Harmonizer, a freaky, vintage pitch modulation studio secret weapon lovingly used by David Bowie, Grateful Dead, AC/DC, Van Halen, Frank Zappa and beyond, and for which this record and his brand new recording studio are named after. It was even one of his sole accompanying pieces during his unprecedented solo quarantine performance at Zebulon.
This record, not unlike 2013’s Sleeper, is one in Ty’s wormy and beautifully sprawling catalog that wears exactly what was going on in his world directly on its sleeve. It’s what happens when the 21st century’s most bombastic and expressive rock and roll enthusiast is locked away at home for two years, unable to create with his usual collaborators or crank an amplifier and is reconciled to jam along to a drum machine, bash away on a stockpile of synthesizers and DI his guitar. Singing about being stuck at home, looking at photographs of old memories, the weather, and even calling upon his wife, Deneé to take lead vocals on a song literally about someone making you feel good. What else have we been able to talk about over the last year and a half?
Harmonizer is the result of our collective ride through the alternate universe that accidentally became our reality, refracted through Ty’s multi-color prismatic lens. Harmonizer is us all.