Guerilla Toss - You're Weird Now

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.”