No One’s Baby

Ty Segall “The Main Pretender”

The saxophone is central to this song, driving the main melodic hook and contrasting starkly with a bass part that I’m guessing is being played on a synthesizer on a “robot belching” setting. The sax part is strong, but it’s made even better by an extremely dry recording that seems nearly devoid of reverb and is very loud in the mix. It has an uncanny effect – accurate, but unnatural and vaguely alien. It’s perfectly suited to the tone and aesthetic Ty Segall is going for here – heavy and soulful, but slightly off. There’s a grandiosity to it that is relatively new to his body of work, but it’s undercut by the clever and perverse choices in the arrangement and recording.

Buy it from Bandcamp.