Sometimes I miss the days when my taste occupied a tiny little patch of dirt in the music universe. I would listen to the same album over and over again for months at a time, memorizing each melodic contour and grainy detail. These days, my iTunes library swells so fast I don’t have time to catch up. Instead of being on constant rotation, albums will sit and rot in the dark cellar of Information Overload. This is all to say that our listening habits are more distracted and eclectic than ever. While distracted listening isn’t an inherent evil (I can’t remember the last time I folded my laundry in silence), how often do we sit down and really listen to what’s playing? When was the last time I let an album worm its way so deeply into my life that, listening later, it doesn’t evoke a moment, a place, a person, but a whole cross section of who I am?
“Color Picture,” from Boston/NY band Guerilla Toss’s new album Eraser Stargazer Forever, doesn’t care if you’re preoccupied. This shit screams in your face for attention. It’s garish. It’s nonsense. It’s the temperamental toddler who’s equal parts endearing and monstrous. Carried forward by a whiny synthesizer hook and Kassie Carlson’s weirdo slinky vocal delivery, “Color Picture” grabs a jumbo crayon and scribbles all over the walls. Guerilla Toss smear this surrealism onto every aspect of their aesthetic. They treat language like play-doh, squishing words into abstract lumps without much regard for meaning or coherence. Like some of my other favorite purveyors of all things sugary and unhinged, Guerilla Toss inject their Pixy Stix magic right into the bloodstream. “Color Picture” demands capitulation to its bonkers illogic. Armed with manic cowbells and a gurgling bassline, it scrappily claws its way out of the background listening abyss.
So yeah, try to put this on the next time you fold your laundry. Just don’t blame me when you look around 2 minutes and 41 seconds later to find a bigger mess than you started with.
