Yet as ever, Ty wears his influences in a relaxed manner: tried on like a paisley shirt or feather boa, then discarded. Another touchstone might be Donovan – “Blue” seems to channel his whimsical delivery and a taste for surreal lyrical flights of fancy. Bolan’s influence – specifically the psychedelically inclined folk of his early Tyrannosaurus Rex incarnation – is writ all over Hello, Hi. His catalogue features a rich seam of songs that channel Marc Bolan – think Manipulator’s “Don’t You Want To Know (Sue)”, or Sleeper’s “Sweet CC”.
Hello, Hi brings a couple of Ty’s prime influences to the fore. Written and recorded at Ty’s own home studio, Harmonizer, in 2020, it clocks in at a relatively lean 10 songs and 34 minutes, making it of a piece with albums like Goodbye Bread and Sleeper: song-focused affairs that advance a consistent sound and style, as opposed to the pinball eclecticism of Freedom’s Goblin or Manipulator. Think a freaky flower child, or perhaps a mischievous forest spirit, spinning out riddles in exchange for safe passage. A black and white photo taken by Ty’s wife Denée on a hiking trail near their Topanga Canyon home, it pictures him balanced impishly on a tree branch, holding his guitar out in front of him like a talisman. Ty’s album covers always do a good job of obliquely communicating their contents, and this is no exception. Where Harmonizer felt like the work of a full live band, Hello, Hi bears the mark of a record made alone in isolation, or something close to it.
Where that album was electric, synthetic and raw, Hello, Hi is largely acoustic, rustic-sounding and steeped in a sort of fey, offbeat prettiness. It does, broadly, what Harmonizer did not. Seasoned Ty watchers will know that he tends to follow a zig with a zag, and so it is with Hello, Hi.
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