One of my favorite R.E.M. anecdotes passed on through the years is how Michael Stipe reacted to hearing Patti Smith’s Horses in his formative years. The story goes that he bought a few albums, took them home, had a whole bowl of cherries while listening to them and was so moved by the music that he threw up afterwards – and decided then and there to be a musician. A bowl of cherries will do that.
For me, Hurray for the Riff Raff’s The Past is Still Alive is one of the finest albums I’ve heard in quite some time. No cherries nor vomit, but this is a damn good album.
I’m not new to Alynda Segarra’s music, really. The first song of theirs that hit me was “Living in the City” from 2017’s The Navigator.
The album at large didn’t quite land with me, but there was something very special – if slightly underbaked – about “Living in the City.” Segarra’s writing is so evocative of a place in this song that before I really cared about the video I had gone with them on a voyage. There were a few lovely layers and textures (the backing vocals!) and amazing deliveries on lines like, “I watched the city quiver.”
I’d followed their music off and on since then and dug a few tracks off 2022’s LIFE ON EARTH – “PIERCED ARROWS” is a great power pop song with a soaring chorus; “RHODODENDRON” is a grower that inserts itself into your noggin and lives there, unveiling more and more on each listen. The lushness of LIFE ON EARTH was notable and the whole piece just felt more organic versus the balance of something like The Navigator. Through it all, though, Segarra’s songwriting hit a really nice target. Their lyrics blended the literal and the figurative, stories and fables and the reality of life, with an admirable level of economy – they’re an amazing editor. Their music got more ornate and denser, but not to a fault.
That brings us to 2024’s The Past is Still Alive. The album cover sets the tone and the mood. This is not an album of a trivial nature; this is serious shit, this person has seen some shit, and they’re very present with us here… and yet, it’s a bathtub against the barren landscape.
But barrenness isn’t permanent, and it isn’t how things have always been nor how they will be. In this piece, Segarra turns over the ideas of memory and time and history so like a pebble in their hand as we see their life flash before our eyes in song. “You don’t have to die if you don't wanna die.” “I’m in the back of the pickup most of the time. It’s all in the past, but the past is still alive.” “Return to the rocks and stones.” “These things take time; I know they do.” “Most of our old friends are dead.” “You told me your big secret on the F.D.R.” “Now what do you turn to when all reality’s bending?”
The feel and fabric of the album is just as organic as LIFE ON EARTH, but the spirit of it leans more introspective. This album is, to me, more accessible. Songs are tight – the soaring “Ogallala” earns every one of its five minutes but it’s the longest track here – and we’re in most scenes for just a few minutes. On the road in “Hawkmoon”, meeting Miss Jonathan (“I could have ridden shotgun forever”), being exposed to the bigness and queerness of a person and a city. A poignancy and moment of nostalgia… then it’s gone. Time collapses in on itself in “Vetiver”, the natural world contrasting with a hook up at Stonewall (a rare moment of wit shows up: “She broke my heart, but at least I got a shower in”) and the feeling of missing someone or something and going back to one’s roots. “Buffalo” reaches out after leadoff track “Alibi”, masquerading as a straightforward guitar & vocal track before it deepens to a meditation on extinction and loss. Easy stuff. Through it all The Past is Still Alive builds into a retrospective of one’s life told in vignettes, contrasted against a real struggle with time. This shows up in the functional closer “Ogallala”: “I used to think I was born into the wrong generation, but now I know I made it right on time.” Segarra’s voice is triumphant but not victorious; they belt this line with the emotion of someone who won it all but also lost it all. Just a stunner.
The album ends with “Kiko Forever”. The club is closed, the story told, and we’re left with a jazz ditty haunting the room after hours as voicemails from Segarra’s late father play front and center. The voicemails are what you’d expect from a parent to a child. How the day is going. Making chicken wings. Saying they’re proud of you. Even here, we have those little glimpses into the daily life of someone. And then the track ends abruptly. So does life.
I definitely saw a thread to my favorite R.E.M. album, 1992’s Automatic for the People. That piece is more straight on about death and mourning and loss. But I loved putting a track like “Find the River” (“None of this is going my way”, and the shout-out to vetiver and the natural world) in the same sphere as this album; R.E.M. goes for the oblique, as is typical, while Hurray for the Riff Raff goes for the literal. But while The Past is Still Alive isn’t “about” death and the passing of Segarra’s father it opens more doors than R.E.M.’s album via the stories and the vignettes. Stipe and crew are there to emote with us and commiserate, while Segarra is here to honor and tell the stories of those who are with us and those who are not. Automatic is the immediate balm for massive loss and The Past is Still Alive is a reflection and renewal of what life was in the first place. It’s how we celebrate and remember people when they’re gone, and should be what we do when they’re here, too.
The Past is Still Alive is one of the best things I’ve ever heard. I’m eager to see what Segarra does next of course, but in the meantime they’ve given us something very special and very real.
Further reading: Matt Mitchell's great piece on this album at Paste.
