The classic live album once had a function that streaming video has largely made obsolete. Records such as Live at Leeds, Made in Japan or Band of Gypsys were not merely documents of tours; for listeners who had never seen those bands, they could become definitive versions of the music. Ty Segall's Deforming Lobes belongs to a smaller modern category: a live record whose reason for existing becomes obvious as soon as the guitars start.
Recorded at Los Angeles' Teragram Ballroom with the Freedom Band, the album captures music that changes significantly onstage. Songs from across Segall's catalogue are opened up, extended and pushed toward louder, less disciplined forms. The studio versions provide the compositions; the live performances test how much distortion and improvisation those compositions can withstand.
Steve Albini's recording is essential to the effect. The two guitars occupy distinct positions in the stereo field, making it possible to follow individual squeals, feedback trails and ugly little fragments of sound as they ricochet across the mix. The recording is loud and abrasive, but the separation keeps the noise from collapsing into mud.
"Cherry Red" provides the clearest example. What begins as a song gradually becomes a guitar confrontation, with each player answering the other until the performance seems to be held together by feedback and momentum. The excitement comes from hearing the structure threatened without actually disappearing.
The Freedom Band's lineage runs through the MC5, the Stooges and the more violent edge of psychedelic rock. There are traces of Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd as well, although very little here resembles gentle psychedelia. Repetition is used as pressure. Riffs become hypnotic because they are played harder and longer than good manners would recommend.
The longer versions of "Warm Hands" and "Love Fuzz" make the band's purpose especially clear. These are not faithful concert reproductions. The songs become frameworks for collective improvisation, and their proportions change accordingly. Segall's catalogue is being treated as material rather than scripture.
Deforming Lobes will not restore the live album to its former cultural importance, nor does it need to. It captures something a phone video rarely conveys well: the physical relationship between amplifiers, room, audience and musicians when a band is operating close to the edge of control. The appropriate volume is the one at which nearby objects begin to seem insecure.
GENRE: Psych/Fuzz
RELEASE DATE: March 29, 2019
PRODUCED BY: Steve Albini (recording & mixing)
LABEL: Drag City
RATING: 7/10