In an age where search engine optimization is a vital consideration for news headlines, business upstarts, and pretty much all creative endeavors, you’d be forgiven if you thought that a band called Guitar would drift into eternal, unsearchable obscurity. But ask Guitar brainchild Saia Kuli about the would-be gaffe, it’s the innate humor in such a milquetoast name that outshined the SEO pitfall.
“It’s gotten maybe more annoying this time around because I’m trying to get it out more, and it’s like, this actually kinda sucks [laughs],” says Kuli. “But I’m married to it now.”
Kuli’s project just released their second full-length album, We’re Headed To The Lake, via Philadelphia label, Julia’s War Recordings. The new LP eschews some of the grime and overt experimentalism heard on Guitar’s first album, 2024’s Casting Spells on Turtlehead, favoring the energy of a more focused collection of anthemic cuts. This approach to the writing and recording of the new album called for a more live-band-in-a-room feel rather than the one-man-in-a-bedroom vibe heard on Guitar singles since the project’s inception in 2022, and a self-released EP—Element of Surprise—in 2023.
As Kuli explains, the influence of a West and East Coast tour with Portland’s Nick Normal following the release of Casting Spells was something of a bellwether for Guitar’s current incarnation.
“When I was writing the new record, I had the live sound more in mind,” says Kuli. “I was thinking about how all the members of the band would have to play, and the dynamics of putting on a good live show and sounding good versus only thinking about the recordings as the final outcome.”
Prior to this shift, Guitar had been more or less a solo project for Kuli, an outlet for his burgeoning beatmaking interests to complement the off-kilter slacker-pop stylings he’d been writing his tunes within. Learning how to use Ableton during the pandemic, Kuli embraced his love of hip-hop weirdos like Psyche Origami and Madlib for the first iterations of Guitar.
The results were wonderfully strange slabs of warbling indie rock that took Kuli’s deft ear for the offbeat, smashing it with ambitious rhythmic foundations. The project began to diversify its ranks on Casting Spells with the inclusion of drummer Nikhil Wadhwa, who returns for We’re Headed To The Lake, contributing to the sample-laced bombast of Guitar’s debut with its first senses of analog heart.
With the move toward a more classic band format, Kuli also permitted the evolution of the recordings from the aural realm of lo-fi tape-hissers to more full-bodied studio tracks.
“I definitely put a lot more effort into recording it properly,” says Kuli. “On past releases, I was honestly pretty lazy with it. It was a mixture of me being lazy and also thinking it’s cool [for it to sound home-recorded].”
Shades of Robert Pollard’s hyper-prolificacy and one-take aesthetic permeate We’re Headed To The Lake. Kuli admits as much to his affinity for ’90s guitar-rock titans like Weezer, Pixies, and Guided by Voices, in addition to cassette culture stalwarts like Cleaners from Venus as blueprints for the album. On album-opener “A+ for the Rotting Team,” delicately skewed acoustic guitar clears a path for Kuli’s pep-talk power-pop verse. The song’s propulsive thrust moves along briskly until the sudden invasion of a discordant electric guitar mutates the melody, inviting a hallmark of Kuli’s arrangements, that of the sharp-turn into the bizarre underbellies of indie rock romp.
On the single “Everyday Without Fail,” Kuli croons an ode to the mundane behind a raucous pop-punk epic redolent of sing-along gems from the emo early 2000s. A triumphant dueling harmonic guitar break—à la Thin Lizzy—precedes a hardcore breakdown later in the tune, assuring the unpredictability of its direction.
As Kuli explains, the song elevated the more positive tone he was hoping to convey in contrast with the darker mood on Casting Spells as a whole. “I was trying to have a self-talk throughout this album that was more positive,” he says. “More hype.”
The hype is real on other album standouts like “Cornerland,” an intricate rocker barely attempting to hide its Lee Ranaldo inspirations. Elsewhere, a refined delicacy bursts through on the album’s third single, “Chance to Win,” which features Kuli’s wife Jontajshae Smith on lead vocals delivering a potent yin to the rest of the album’s pronounced yang, with surprise violins and shakers punctuating the sonic smorgasbord.
Guitar released their new album October 18 with a show at Central Eastside music haven Swan Dive, and now have headed out for some select shows in the Midwest supporting Philly shoegazers TAGABOW (They Are Gutting A Body of Water) before returning to Portland November 7 at Polaris Hall.
And despite Kuli’s more deliberate, thoughtful approach to this new record, it seems he’s ready for the rapid-fire release game again. “I’m ready to demo and stuff fast, mess around with the four-track cassette, because it took a lot more work,” says Kuli. “My heart’s kinda with the scrappy, quick, lo-fi stuff.”
Guitar's new album We're Headed To The Lake is out now on Julia's War Recordings, and can be picked up at the band's Bandcamp as a compact disc, cassette tape, or digital download.
