Built To Spill

Built to Spill was formed in 1993 by Doug Martsch and over the years they have toured
extensively and made several albums with a rotating cast of musicians, currently featuring
Teresa Esguerra (Prism Bitch) on drums, and Melanie Radford (Blood Lemon) on bass.

Guerilla Toss

When NYC-based experimental dance punks Guerilla Toss, active since time

immemorial aka 2011, were in Vermont recording their new full-length album

You’re Weird Now, frontwoman Kassie Carlson would prepare what she called

‘punk lunch’: a communal meal made by raiding the studio fridge for whatever

was left and assembling a sandwich from the most random ingredients

imaginable.

Regularly joining punk lunch were two legends from their own corners of the

weird music world: Stephen Malkmus (Pavement, The Jicks) and Trey

Anastasio, Phish guitarist and owner of The Barn; the recording studio where

Guerilla Toss were making You’re Weird Now, with Malkmus in the producer’s

seat. Engineer Bryce Goggin, who has worked with Malkmus since Crooked

Rain, Crooked Rain, and Ben Collette, Phish’s longtime engineer at The Barn,

were also part of the crew.

While the idea of the guy from Phish and the guy from Pavement sitting

around with Guerilla Toss, congenially assembling sandwiches from random

foodstuffs dug up from the depths of a studio fridge, might seem absurd, it

also makes total sense. Because really, if there’s any band that serves as the

natural bridge between slacker punks who saw Pavement way before you did,

wild-eyed wooks who’ve seen Phish more times than you ever will, and even

the eccentrics in ’90s drip following former GT tourmates Primus—it’s Guerilla

Toss. A band so imaginative and unapologetically themselves, they’re

basically the real-life manifestation of a utopian, post-snob world where all

musical ideas are worthy of expression and everyone is welcome.You’re Weird Now powers this message. Guerilla Toss’ fifth album and second

for Sub Pop is a hugely creative and joyful statement about the joy of

creativity. With You’re Weird Now Guerilla Toss reclaim the word “weird” for

everyone brave enough to let their freak flag fly and stay true to their artistic

vision no matter what—a way riskier act than it’s ever given credit for, and one

that requires a certain amount of serene self-confidence that it takes time and

effort to cultivate and sustain.

Serene self-confidence defines You’re Weird Now. In many ways, it’s Guerilla

Toss at their most quintessential. The energy is still high, but there’s a new

clarity behind it, with each musical choice crafted for maximum impact.

Drummer Peter Negroponte half-jokingly calls the album “Guerilla Toss’s

Greatest Hits that didn’t exist until now”, and honestly, it rings true. “As a band,

we’re always trying to reinvent ourselves,’ he says. “But with this record,

instead of asking what we haven’t tried, because we’ve done a lot of crazy

stuff, we asked, what have we done that’s the strongest? And how can we

build on that? Let’s dig into our own musical history and try to make the best

parts even better.”

The record opens with ‘Krystal Ball,’ a charging, feel-good pop anthem

featuring an industrial breakdown and a boingy-sproingy hook so catchy, it

feels impossible you haven’t already lost your mind to it at some DIY festival,

shouting along with Carlson as she declares, ‘I’m so sorry! I came to party!’

Next comes ‘Psychosis Is Just a Number,’ a no wave, skronk anthem about

staying present in the chaos, giving post-punk Pylon meets The Contortions,

and a healthy obsession with the No New York Compilation produced by Brian

Eno. A standout moment arrives with ‘Red Flag to Angry Bull,’ which builds toa campfire sing-along-worthy outro featuring Malkmus and Carlson duetting

over a chatty, classically Phish-y (there’s really no better word for it) solo from

Anastasio. The band notes that the humble Anastasio was both shocked and

honored when asked to contribute, proof that even music legends can feel like

outsiders deep into their careers. The resulting cacophony of voices is

triumphant and joyful, underscoring music’s power as a mode of expression

and connection—communication at its purest and most free-flowing.

If it’s trendy now for rock-adjacent bands to add ambient, electronic,

bubblegum, jungle, and dance elements into their music, it’s worth

remembering that Guerilla Toss has been doing the genreless thing from the

start, and they’re still doing it on You’re Weird Now, an impeccably stacked

“14-layer cake” of musical ideas, to quote Carlson. Take the

ice-cream-for-breakfast sugar rush of “Life’s a Zoo,” a breathless song about

overstimulation that itself gleefully overstimulates by cramming a million sonic

hairpins into its snappy run-time, everything sewn together with a zippy

chiptune hook that’ll pixelate your brain. Negroponte notes that the song has

so many disparate influences that Malkmus mentioned the impossibility of

pinpointing a single one. “That’s winning,” he says proudly.

Malkmus’ laid back production style allowed GT the space to trust their own

instincts, a lesson that Carlson found very meaningful. “His incredibly relatable

down to earth approach to music and trusting yourself as an artist had a

massive effect on this album and myself as a musician,” she says. “Working

with Malkmus, Bryce Goggin, Trey Anastasio, touring with Primus—all of that

made me realize that what I’m doing is not wrong. The work is clear,important, and necessary. It’s not always easy or clear in direction or purpose,

but creating, making, performing music is vital to my life, and a healthy earth.”

“These people have been doing this forever, and they’ve internalized that they

are musicians and their artistic choices are right for them and they believe in

them,” she continues. “It’s really just realness and being true to

yourself—whatever that means for you.”

The band hopes the message of You’re Weird Now will resonate not only with

music heads but anyone who struggles with feeling weird in a world where it

will always be hard to be different. At the end of the day, it’s all about the spirit

of punk lunch: there’s room for everyone because music is for everyone.

“Everyone loves and appreciates music,” says Carlson. “If you don’t like

music, you’re kind of an asshole.” That’s not weird—that’s just true.