“Tommy the Cat.” “John the Fisherman.” “Jerry Was A Race Car Driver.” “My Name is Mud.” “Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver.” Yessiree, Primus is responsible for some of the most cutting edge and original rock music of the 1990’s. And now, the definitive Primus line-up – singer/bassist Les Claypool, guitarist Larry LaLonde, and drummer Tim Alexander – is back together and planning on getting the worldwide masses bobbing up and down in unison once more.

Although originally formed in 1984, it was not until shortly before the end of the decade that the aforementioned classic line-up was solidified. With most hard rock/heavy metal acts at the time either neatly falling into either “thrash” or “glam” categories, Primus joined a variety of underground bands that refused to be pigeonholed (and by the early ’90s, had fully infiltrated the mainstream) – merging metal, funk, alternative, punk, country, roots rock, and experimental music, along with Claypool’s penchant for witty and often humorous storytelling lyrics.

Building a large and loyal following first in and around San Francisco (before eventually, going global), Primus kicked things off with a string of releases that are now considered classic alt-rock titles – 1989’s ‘Suck on This,’ 1990’s ‘Frizzle Fry,’ 1991’s ‘Sailing the Seas of Cheese,’ 1993’s ‘Pork Soda,’ and 1995’s ‘Tales from the Punchbowl.’ Along the way, Primus toured with some of rock’s biggest names (Jane’s Addiction, Public Enemy, Rush, U2, etc.), headlined the third-ever Lollapalooza Festival, and issued a variety of crafty music videos, which stood out in sharp contrast to the ultra-seriousness of most other video clips at the time.

Alexander exited Primus in 1996, but returned in 2003, in time for an EP/DVD set, ‘Animals Should Not Try to Act Like People,’ and a sold out reunion tour, that lasted over the next few years, before the drummer departed once more. But as Claypool got to work on putting together a forthcoming book about the band’s history, Les began longing for the days of when Alexander’s unmistakable and powerful drumming provided the beat. A phone call was placed, a conversation ensued, and before you could say, “Here come the bastards,” the Claypool-LaLonde-Alexander line-up was back in business. Plans to tour the world over and offering up new music are already in place. Be forewarned…here they come!

Although originally formed in 1984, it was not until shortly before the end of the decade that the aforementioned classic line-up was solidified. With most hard rock/heavy metal acts at the time either neatly falling into either “thrash” or “glam” categories, Primus joined a variety of underground bands that refused to be pigeonholed (and by the early ’90s, had fully infiltrated the mainstream) – merging metal, funk, alternative, punk, country, roots rock, and experimental music, along with Claypool’s penchant for witty and often humorous storytelling lyrics. 

Building a large and loyal following first in and around San Francisco (before eventually, going global), Primus kicked things off with a string of releases that are now considered classic alt-rock titles – 1989’s ‘Suck on This,’ 1990’s ‘Frizzle Fry,’ 1991’s ‘Sailing the Seas of Cheese,’ 1993’s ‘Pork Soda,’ and 1995’s ‘Tales from the Punchbowl.’ Along the way, Primus toured with some of rock’s biggest names (Jane’s Addiction, Public Enemy, Rush, U2, etc.), headlined the third-ever Lollapalooza Festival, and issued a variety of crafty music videos, which stood out in sharp contrast to the ultra-seriousness of most other video clips at the time.

Alexander exited Primus in 1996, but returned in 2003, in time for an EP/DVD set, ‘Animals Should Not Try to Act Like People,’ and a sold out reunion tour, that lasted over the next few years, before the drummer departed once more. But as Claypool got to work on putting together a forthcoming book about the band’s history, Les began longing for the days of when Alexander’s unmistakable and powerful drumming provided the beat. A phone call was placed, a conversation ensued, and before you could say, “Here come the bastards,” the Claypool-LaLonde-Alexander line-up was back in business. Plans to tour the world over and offering up new music are already in place. Be forewarned…here they come!

The man in the tree has a guitar, he’s gonna sing. But the sun shining through the branches— are those rays yellow or hazy gray? What day is today? When are you not going to feel this way again?

“Hello, Hi”: welcome in to a new room to play the styles and feels that lie under Ty Segall’s fingers, easing fresh air into acoustic space with an assortment of love songs flowering in righteous unconsciousness. Plaintive and wistful, but unafraid. Like rain washing away yesterday, “Hello, Hi” pushes open the door, inviting the new to pass through all the old shades and degrees of hot and cold. Dark paths turn off abruptly into absurd darkness, then wind back through the broken rocks, ecstatic again. Absurdity again. It happens everyday.

“Hello, Hi” is expansively rendered by Ty, mostly by himself, at home. The isolation suits the songs: you’re only ever as “at home” as you are with yourself in the mirror. Ty’s acoustic and electric guitars and vocal harmonies layer self upon self, forming a spiny backbone for the album. Textures at once gentle and dissonant root the songs as they make their move: melodic arcs convulsing in doubt and bliss and rage. Busting out of the endless gridlock into open space, these spirits pass on through.

“Hello, Hi”’s flickering awakening to this trip: the opening three tracks’ train of sweet and salty reflections, before the abrupt crunch of the title track electrifies the senses. Good morning’s turned to good mourning in nothing flat, but there’s still a way up from the doldrums, to try again. Why can’t it be just as simple as “Hello, Hi”? What to do with yourself when love triggers loathing? How many more times do you have to go back there again? Pulling at the scratchy wool threads of an old sweater favored for warmth, comfort, protection, rejection, denial, blindness etc, Ty Segall dives from a clear, open sky, down through the marine layer and the shimmering waves of all the years.

Radiating from the same mind fields as Goodbye Bread and Sleeper, mixed with shard edges of contrast and contradiction from things like Freedom’s Goblin, Manipulator, and First Taste, “Hello, Hi” is Ty’s most relaxed and complete production to date, an ebb-and flow fusion of words and music offering abstraction and acceptance as it wrestles itself through a fucked-up time. Your life and what you make of it — throughout “Hello, Hi,” Ty Segall charts a passage through its enduring tangles honestly, with clarity and confusion.