MUSIC

Guerilla Toss – An Avant-Garde Punk & Electronic Band

Guerilla Toss is a genre-defying band known for their electrifying blend of punk rock, electronic beats, and experimental soundscapes. Their latest album, Famously Alive, on Sub Pop Records, pushes the boundaries of indie rock with futuristic production and frenetic energy.

Dig deep enough inside yourself -- start treating your body as your sanctuary rather than your enemy -- and eventually, you'll find yourself blooming right back out into the sun. That's the transformation Guerilla Toss trace on their newest album Famously Alive, their effervescent Sub Pop debut. After a decade sprinkling glitter into grit, building a reputation as one of the most ferociously creative art-rock groups working, the upstate New York band have eased fully into their light. This is Guerilla Toss at their most luminescent -- awake, alive, and extending an open invitation to anyone who wants to soak it all up beside them.

Singer and lyricist Kassie Carlson, multi-instrumentalist Peter Negroponte and guitarist Arian Shafiee wrote Famously Alive at home in the Catskills during the pervading quiet of the pandemic year. Together with guitarist Arian Shafiee, Carlson and Negroponte cultivated a sound that spliced together psychedelic texturing and Krautrock syncopation with the gloss and glow of contemporary pop music. Famously Alive finds Guerilla Toss coming into the fullness of their power, celebrating their prismatic idiosyncrasies from a place of optimism and abundance.

NYC (via Boston) band Guerilla Toss present “Human Girl” and “Own Zone,” two new, exclusive tracks that perfectly capture the exuberant, danceable fusion of post-punk, funk, and experimental rock that Guerilla Toss have been serving up since 2012.

FAMOUSLY ALIVE

Sub Pop 2022

1. Cannibal Capital

2. Famously Alive

3. Live Exponential

4. Mermaid Airplane

5. Wild Fantasy

6. Pyramid Humm

7. Excitable Girls

8. I Got Spirit

9. Happy Me

10. Heathen in Me

Guerilla Toss returns to NNA Tapes with a brand new EP, 'What Would The Odd Do?', an exploration into new territories and an expansion on their recipe for twisted, addictive rock & roll mania: fried funk, damaged dance, and cosmic cacophony. Fans of 70’s prog and rock greats like King Crimson and Todd Rundgren as well as modern torchbearers like Sheer Mag and Deerhoof will be joyfully united by GT's uniquely familiar world of wonder and excitement.

For Kassie Carlson -- singer, songwriter, and bandleader of Guerilla Toss -- What Would The Odd Do? is unarguably the group's most personal release in their impressive history as a music-making collective. After open-heart surgery in 2017 to remove a dangerous blood clot caused by a severe opiate addiction, Carlson has found a new joy in life. She has since cleaned up for good, moved to Upstate New York with her partner and Guerilla Toss drummer, Peter Negroponte, and has never felt more inspired.

Kassie Carlson is a true poet of punk, the voice of an unheard generation, the leader of The Odd. Few people have been through what she has, and making it out alive is just the beginning. With her band of musical misfits, Guerilla Toss is an unstoppable force of nature. Like all great and challenging art, their message is abstract, yet decipherable. And once the listener cracks the code, they’ll be immersed in a uniquely familiar world of wonder and excitement. What will unite us more than to celebrate the absurd and question what we’ve been told is obvious? Let GT be just one of the many songs among the soundtrack of existential infinity and divine recovery.

Analog synthesizers give tangible life to the works of Guerilla Toss. Whether it be the sound of a rocket ship, a kitten-with-a-wah, distorted dolphins, or a clavichord made out of honey-baked ham, the band consistently finds new ways to bring together the many ideas that combine to shape each new batch of art-rock puzzle pieces.

Twisted Crystal, Guerilla Toss’ new LP, feels more personal than ever for the band. Angular yet irresistibly catchy, this collection of pop songs pulls influence from powerful groups like The Slits, ESG, Gina X, and early Madonna, with sing-speak vocals from Kassie Carlson nodding to legendary artists like Laurie Anderson, Grace Jones, and Lizzy Mercier Descloux – combining this all into a twisted, crystalline concoction.

Oracles and enigmatic egos are common lyrical themes, but charismatic instrumentality springs the listener back to extraterrestrial comfort. Old favorite sounds ring true from the trusty Sequential Circuits Six Track Synthesizer and Clavia Drum Machine. New, more refined sounds are molded and polished by drummer/producer Peter Negroponte, whose passion for perfection and creation goes far beyond an all-consuming Tetris effect. Peter has truly excelled on this new recording, creating a complex networks of beats and sound that become easily intertwined with the rhythmic fabric of life.

Raised in a devoutly religious family, vocalist Kassie Carlson started performing at the age of five. She often participated in large pastoral choral performances, as well as her family’s four-part harmony gospel quartet, making her no stranger to the stage. Growing up under the fear of God leaves a distinct footprint on your perception. An omnipresent male dictates not only your present waking life but also the rest of your eternity. Discovering a rock band was more than self-expression for Kassie, it was a manifestation of a self-healing temple, a personal pipeline for power. What better way to part the waters of toxic sludge than a matriarchal shout?

Arian Shafiee, Guerilla Toss’ resident textural-guitar guru, is inspired by aspects of non-Western tuning and extended techniques. He designs moments of dense, glistening, pitch-shifted harmony and measured strumming that link classical impressionism to no-wave and early minimal music. His recent solo work truly comes through on this new record, as he tethers fantastical surreality to noise rock to deconstructed Middle Eastern pop music.

Keyboardist Sam Lisabeth paws the keys with distinct virtuosity and expressive sass. A new member, Stephen Cooper (of the band Cloud Becomes Your Hand), binds the group with an urgent, disciplined, and melodic style. The hypnotic, ostinato-like basslines and up front rhythm tracks guide and grip each song like gravity, keeping the listener from swirling off into the cosmos.

In albums past, Kassie’s performances resembled more of a manic, possessed high priestess; humming at the gates of hell, hacking telepathy and tugging the strings of every audience member. Twisted Crystal goes beyond this familiar darkness, leading us into a rhythmically calming charm with deep wisdom, serenity, and understanding. What is a twisted crystal? And who told you it would heal?

At times the listener wanders through mazes of dizzying, alternately pulsing time signatures, but the roads always bounce, meet and magically snap back together. That meditative groove, both live and in the studio, has become signature for Guerilla Toss, drawing deep influence from 70s krautrock and experimental rock music like Tom Tom Club, Talking Heads, Brian Eno, Neu!, Cluster, Todd Rundgren, and La Dusseldorf.

A constantly evolving, living breathing entity, the band now presents the album Twisted Crystal. Enjoy the same surrealistic, kinetic healing energy of live Guerilla Toss, today in your own home.

“Magic is Easy. Hypnotize yourself well.” 

GT ULTRA

DFA Records 2017

TRACKLIST

1. Betty Dreams of Green Men

2. Can I Get the Real Stuff?

3. Crystal Run

4. TV Do Tell

5. The String Game

6. Skull Pop

7. Dog in the Mirror

8. Dose Rate

GT Ultra is the second full length album by Guerilla Toss on DFA Records. The album demonstrates a remarkable shift in sound, musicianship and songwriting, without ever giving up the unhinged quality that made their earlier recordings so exciting. 

The album title GT Ultra is a clever nod to ‘Project MK Ultra’, the government sponsored experiments using new experimental drugs to explore mind control, torture and forced confessions, often with LSD as their drug of choice. These tests lasted from the mid 1950’s-1960’s, but with a new administration in the white house, government sponsored torture is fresh again on many minds.

The songs on the album ricochet back and forth between hyper bouncy pop and deeper darker longer, more nuanced tracks. Peter Negroponte’s drumming, always a major highlight for the band, are in full force once again, this time bringing a Nassau/Compass Point feel to many tracks, like the classic recordings of Grace Jones and Talking Heads. 

Kassie’s vocals and lyrics are both more personal and more cryptic than ever. But you can hear every word this time, and there is a lyric sheet. As preferred, the meaning is within the listener. It is a dream state record for sure, meant to take you along on a similar vibe that the band has been tripping on these past few years, filled with an insistence to “hydrate, gyrate, think straight, no weight”, all the while under the influence of golden beams of orange sunshine, glimmering glitter and kaleidoscopic bursts.

It is no mistake the album is wrapped in vintage blotter acid, created by legendary LSD archivist and artist Mark McCloud and The Institute of Illegal Images, based out of San Francisco. 

ERASER STARGAZER

DFA Records 2016

TRACKLIST

1. Multibeast TV

2. Diamond Girls

3. Grass Shack

4. Color Picture

5. Eraser Stargazer

6. Perfumes

7. Big Brick

8. Doll Face on the Calico Highway

Eraser Stargazer was written and recorded in 6 weeks of winter isolation in upstate New York. Fans of the group will hear all of the beloved hallmarks of the Guerilla Toss sound - solid bass grooves, squealing guitars, and kitchen sink percussion. Each instrument now occupies its own part of the audio spectrum, with vocalist/poet Kassie Carlson’s spirited incantations brought into focus. Album centerpiece Grass Shack is a perfect example of this leaner, yet tougher Toss. It traverses nearly seven minutes of game- show-winner keyboard stabs, mutant funk basslines, and time signature changes - all grounded by Peter Negroponte’s virtuosic drumming. Carlson describes the themes of the song as “A deep analytical depiction of a small unit of time, with heightened senses, Ripping yourself out of bed even though it might be harsh and overwhelming. Seeing patterns in the little things that make life beautiful.” Heavy subject matter permeates the rest of the record - but that doesn’t mean it’s a downer. Lead single Diamond Girls casts Carlson as a no-wave cheerleader over instrumentation reminiscent of DFA alumni Black Dice and The Rapture, culminating in the group’s catchiest chorus yet. Album closer Doll Face On The Calico Highway is the perfect summation - angular guitars, bells, and low-end vibrations interject and decompose as quickly as they appear, until a hissing cymbal is all that remains.

LIVE IN NASHVILLE

DFA Records 2016

TRACKLIST

1. Polly's Crystal (Live) 

2. 367 Equalizer (Live) 

3. Drip Decay (Live) 

4. Eraser Stargazer Forever (Live) 

5. Operate (Live) 

6. TV Spell (Live)

7. Operate (Reprise) (Live) 

8. Diamond Girls (Live) 

GIANT CLAW VS GUERILLA TOSS

DFA Records 2016

TRACKLIST

1. Grass Shack (Giant Claw Remix) 

2. Doll Face On The Calico Highway (Giant Claw Remix) 

3. Diamond Girls (Giant Claw Remix)

4. Color Picture (Giant Claw Remix) 

5. Ritual In Light (Giant Claw Remix) 

FLOOD DOSED

DFA Records 2015

TRACKLIST

1. Realistic Rabbit

2. Ritual in Light

3. Polly’s Crystal

SMACK THE BRICK

NNA TAPES 2014

TRACKLIST

1. Smack The Brick 

2. Be The Breeder

3. Etqueeny 

4. Billy Blood Idol

367 Equalizer

Infinity Cat Tapes 2013

1. TV Spell 

2. Cookie

3. A Pig Who Feeds

4. 367 Equalizer