Alynda Segarra is 36, or a little less than halfway through the average American lifespan. In that comparatively brief time,though, the Hurray for the Riff Raff founder has been something of a modern Huck Finn, an itinerant traveler whoseadventures prompt art that reminds us there are always other ways to live.
Born in the Bronx and of Puerto Rican heritage, Segarra was raised there by a blue-collar aunt and uncle, as their fathernavigated Vietnam trauma and their mother neglected them to work for the likes of Rudy Giuliani. They were radicalizedbefore they were a teenager, baptized in the anti-war movement and galvanized in New York’s punk haunts and queerspaces. At 17, Segarra split, becoming the kid in a communal squat before shuttling to California, where they begancrisscrossing the country by hopping trains. They eventually found home—spiritual, emotional, physical—in New Orleans,forming a hobo band and realizing that music was not only a way to share what they’d learned and seen but to learn andsee more. Hurray for the Riff Raff steadily rose from house shows to a major label, where Segarra became a pan-everythingfixture of the modern folk movement. But that yoke became a burden, prompting Segarra to make the probing and poignantelectronic opus, 2022’s Life on Earth, their Nonesuch debut. Catch your breath, OK? We’re back to 36, back to now.
During the last dozen years, these manifold tales of Segarra’s voyages have shaped an oral folklore of sorts, with theteenage vagabonding or subsequent trainhopping becoming what some may hear about Hurray for the Riff Raff beforehearing the music itself. Segarra has dropped tidbits in songs, too, but they always worried that their experiences were tooradical, that memories of dumpster diving or riding through New Orleans with a dildo dangling on an antenna were toomuch. But on The Past Is Still Alive, Segarra finally tells the story themselves, speckling stirring reflections on love, loss, andthe end or evolution of the United States with foundational scenes from their own life. “It felt like a trust fall, or a letting goof this idea of proving something to the music industry—how I can be more digestible, modifiable, sellable,” Segarra says. “Ifeel like I’m closer to what I actually have to share.”
There is, for instance, sex and communal musicmaking on an island of San Francisco trash during “Snake Plant (The PastIs Still Alive),” a charged attempt to reckon the erosion of our childhood innocence with a belief that a worthwhile future isstill possible. Or there are the cops and the trains and the long walks down empty Nebraska highways to escape said copsduring “Ogalla,” the cathartic closer that tries to maintain the spirit of the past while actually surviving in the now. The Past IsStill Alive is the record of Segarra’s life so far, not only because it chronicles the past to understand the present but alsobecause it is the most singular and magnetic thing Hurray for the Riff Raff have yet made. A master work of modern folk-rock, The Past Is Still Alive resets the terms of that tired term.
