Tyler Ballgame Review: For the First Time, Again – Singer-Songwriter Comparison to 70s Greats | music

SGoing back through Tyler Ballgame’s Instagram posts is an amazing experience. Barely a year ago, these publications consisted largely of flyers of — and camera shots of — parties in small Los Angeles bars, the kind that makes as much profit from the fact that admission is as free as for who plays: one ranks one’s performance alongside the vintage clothing market and “tarot readings.” A support slot with a little jam band called Eggy is a very big deal indeed; The news that he was performing in London was greeted with disbelief: “What?” One puzzled reporter asks: “Does London know about Ballgame?”

Things changed dramatically over the next 12 months. Not long after his first trip to London, a video of him live at a Los Angeles bar called The Fable began circulating online. By the time he returned to the UK to perform at Brighton’s Great Escape industrial show, he had signed to Rough Trade. Critical paeans began to rain down on Ballgame: he was variously compared to Roy Orbison, Elvis Presley, John Lennon, Harry Nilsson, Randy Newman, Jim Morrison and Tim Buckley.

He also turns out to be catnip to the rest of the music press, an interviewee with a penchant for Alan Watts’ hippie-friendly philosophy and an interesting backstory. A Berklee College of Music dropout who spent years isolated in his parents’ basement, suffering from depression and a massive appetite for marijuana, he underwent a “spiritual awakening” thanks to the work of German self-help guru Eckhart Tolle — also beloved of Kendrick Lamar — and the intervention of a nutritionist and counselor named Courtney Howard, who was later murdered by her husband. Furthermore, he declared that Tyler Ballgame was not just a stage name, but a character invented by ex Tyler Perry, taking advantage of his background in drama: playing “the quintessential singer from the ’60s and ’70s” gave him “license to show more” of himself.

It’s a clear dichotomy in his vocal style, which was both distinctly beautiful on his first album – a depressed, muffled tone that drifts into a soulful falsetto as if doing so was the easiest thing in the world – and a bit theatrical. There’s an audible and acted pleasure about her combination of precise pronunciation and distorted vowels (“Mama always told me cream would do.” RooR“—meaning “rot”—he sings on “A Matter of Taste,” and at its most audibly Elvis-y or Orbison-esque, the faint sense that he is deliberately flirting with comparison.

Likewise, the lyrics lean toward open-hearted, unfiltered confession: “I learned your name but I lost its meaning when I didn’t know how to feel,” he introduces the title track, and it’s not the last time the album references experiencing life anew after the cloud of depression has lifted, albeit one haunted by the fear that the darkness might return. But there’s something we know about music, which is the audible work of people with a deep knowledge of 1970s singer-songwriters and an understanding of how to recreate their sounds. The album was recorded largely live using old-fashioned analogue methods (each track features an audiotape) by producer Jonathan Rado, whose clients include Miley Cyrus, The Killers, and, perhaps most relevant here, the ’70s-obsessed duo, Lemon Twigs. The sound is warm and powerful, and the vocals are full of resonance and reverb that don’t so much evoke 1950s rock and roll as artists would reach for that sound 20 years later. The vaguely Beatlesque take on the tune I Believe in Love (And That’s Good) is emphasized by the sound being recorded in a way that deliberately evokes John Lennon of Mind Games or Walls and Bridges.

Ballgame’s songwriting is a strange, sometimes jarring mix of earnestness — “Look into my eyes and you’ll see it for real — I can only sing what I feel” — and disingenuousness, like Bill Withers’ costar on Michael Kiwanuka’s 2012 debut Home Again, perhaps a little too keen to suggest that his composer belongs to the classic rock lineage. However, the quality of the material keeps the listener hooked while playing – an abundance of great tunes, most notably Deepest Blue and Waiting So Long; The magical shifts in tempo of You Not My Baby Tonight – and whether they’re flabby or not, it’s hard not to find yourself captivated by Ballgame’s voice as they reach the wordless climax of Goodbye My Love. You can understand why they generated so much excitement so quickly, and over-enthusiasm is a perfectly acceptable flaw in a debut album. You get the feeling that for the first time, once again might be the starting point, and as with Kiwanuka, the best might come when Tyler Ballgame steps away from his influences.

Alexis listened this week to

Rip Magic – 5 words
5words was produced by LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy, and you can see why RIP Magic are seen as kindred spirits: a guitar-driven drone that eventually explodes onto the dance floor.