Album review: Ty Segall – Manipulator

Ty Segall's latest offering positively shimmers and serves as a career summation so far.

Manipulator by Ty Segall. Drag City / AP Photo
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Ty Segall

Manipulator (Drag City)

Four stars

In another time and collective mental headspace, Ty Segall might have been a pop star. With his dreamy new album, Manipulator, the Los Angeles psych rocker has perfected a sound – the bright, shiny 1960s garage rock variety – that once fired the imagination of a generation. Alas, these days the average 20-something music fan is focused on something quite different. Yet with sheer tenacity, Segall has navigated his way from cult hero to wider acclaim with spots on the late-night television circuit and in glossy fashion magazines. Segall seizes the moment with Manipulator, dispensing with the 27-year-old's usual fine layer of scuzz for a polished sound that's been burnished to a high gloss. There's an infectious funk on the album's best tracks and songs such as Feel, Tall Man Skinny Lady, The Crawler and The Connection Man. The album positively shimmers and in a lot of ways serves as a career summation for Segall so far. Like all revivalists, he is a miner who's exhumed all the shiniest bits from this particular hole in the ground. It will be interesting to see which turn Segall takes now.