In 2018, Ty Segall’s ‘Freedom’s Goblin’ hit with a watershed feeling. An epic epoch double LP that took the heroic arc of Ty’s populist masterpiece ‘Manipulator’ and wadded it up into a much more aerodynamic (and harderhitting) ball, ‘Freedom’s Goblin’ was also the continued work of the Freedom Band, Ty’s crew of choice since 2016. Storming the world playing songs from throughout his catalogue in a series of ecstatic setlists, they sought freedom for themselves and the audience, even it if was just one night of emancipation from world’s numbing chill.

An all analogue production, recorded live on stage at Teragram Ballroom in Los Angeles by Steve Albini (via mobile unit onto two-inch tape) and mixed with Steve in Chicago at Electrical Audio, ‘Deforming Lobes’ witnesses the blunt-force traumpact of The Freedom Band in full effect, updating (and upending) numbers from Melted, Emotional Mugger, Twins, Manipulator, $ingle$ 2 and Self- Titled.

From the start, the ‘Warm Hands’ suite shows the growth of the group since recording the original version for the 2017 self-titled album – the jam has a new life all its own and the band explore every song with similar unrestrained curiosity, never forgetting the collective experience they’re sharing.

The feeling between audience and band at Los Angeles’ Teragram Ballroom on those January nights was its own special thing; here, the band are somehow even more front and centre, making ‘Deforming Lobes’ the first wholly original statement from The Freedom Band and bookending the ‘Freedom’s Goblin’ experience with a huge exclamation point.