Built To Spill - An algebraic approach to psychedelia

Mathematics and passion. Always an irreconcilable pairing. Maybe it's the memory of that high school teacher mumbling incomprehensible formulas in a thick southern dialect, or the nightmares full of unknowns and functions the night before final exams; either way, repulsion does seem to be the most common reaction to the so-called “queen of the sciences.”

And yet, when it comes to musical emotion, feeling and being carried away, one cannot deny (as the Pythagorean school already showed in antiquity) that the fundamental principles of harmony rest on essentially mathematical rules.

Got any doubts? Listen closely to Built To Spill and everything will become clearer.

In their most inspired moments, Doug Martsch's compositions pull off the feat of perfectly reconciling opposites, rising up as highly emotional/emotive artistic creations built on (cold?) algebraic structures; incredibly intricate sound sequences in which round, square and curly brackets open and close (and then open again), tracing an elaborate layering of instrumentation and a cerebral subdivision of individual musical particles. Extending the metaphor, we could identify them with complex equations whose unknowns remain unknown even after being solved; and it's precisely there that their mysterious appeal lies. The x, y, z symbolically represent melodic inserts and harmonic architectures that appear briefly, only to vanish and make way for others, different ones, never fully revealing themselves, veiled in mystery, like elusive, unapproachable Eastern beauties.

Hardcore beginnings

And to think that the bearded Martsch had kicked off his artistic career with the aggressive hardcore of State Of Confusion in his native Boise, Idaho, before moving to Seattle and veering toward a breezy punk pop with his former bandmates, who had by then renamed themselves Treepeople.

Even here, in the leader's early guitar experiments, still caged within the narrow confines of punk's explosiveness, the influence of figures like J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr., who had already tried to chart alternative paths in the world of six strings, is already emerging.

A shape-shifting band built around the new Neil Young

It's 1993 when Doug Martsch returns to Boise to form Built To Spill with Brett Netson (former guitarist of Caustic Resin) and drummer Ralf Youtz (coming from Lync). Founding members on a fixed term, so to speak, since Martsch himself reveals in an interview that his project calls for lineup changes with every album, keeping only himself as the permanent member. Nothing strange about that, though, since he is unquestionably the project's deus ex machina, and his rationally abstract guitar style is its one truly distinctive trait.

The debut album, Ultimate Alternative Wavers (C/Z Records, 1993), still sounds raw and energetic, bordering on wild at times, but it already contains the first echoes of those long instrumental explosions that are the hallmark of electric Neil Young ("Nowhere Nothin' Fuckup"), which Martsch would later painstakingly tear apart and reassemble in his most brilliant artistic moments.

The big bang of the BTS sound universe

There's Nothing Wrong With Love (Up Records, 1994) lives up to Martsch's promise of change, with both Brett Netson and Youtz replaced by Brett Nelson (yes, really... not to be confused with his near-namesake) and Andy Capps. The band creates a work charged with restless adolescent spleen, illustrating the arduous coming-of-age journey of an ordinary kid.

From the youthful exuberance and itch of the brash "In The Morning" to the post-graduation summer melancholy of "Reasons", with minor-key passages abruptly interrupted by tempo changes and an obsessive refrain that slowly fades away, the band's potential surfaces in flashes, but it lacks consistency, a clearly defined end goal.

"Big Dipper", with its instantly catchy chorus and driving rhythm, already has the stature of an indie-pop classic, but "The Source" is caught between lightweight temptations and avant-garde pastiche, with a sidelong glance at Violent Femmes and winks toward the musical "intelligentsia".

Martsch's thin voice grows steadily throughout the extremely slow "Car", and once the rhythm takes over, aided by a lush string arrangement, the track takes on a shadowy power. Its counterpart is "Israel's Song", deceptively preceded by a fierce opening that quickly settles into funky moves that are not exactly essential.

The cello sets off the tears in "Fling", which could have been written by Rem back in the days of "Green", just as "Cleo" is, suspended in a soft limbo between Stipe and Lou Reed; a few notes scattered in the wind that make the electric guitar solo all the more explosive, violently dragging the song to its close.

With its folk-rock incipit, "Stab" might pass for a sixties protest song, were it not for the usual distortions that drop the mask, catapulting us straight back into the '90s.

A minimalist accompaniment, instead, for the tender "Twin Falls". It's still a time for dreaming; there's plenty of time to grow up.

But that time comes soon. It's time for "Some". An epic opening, with an electric guitar solo that coils around its prey like a boa constrictor, and the vocals creeping in timidly for the longest track on the record. Then come swirling waves of sound that grow exponentially, literally swallowing the listener whole. "Distopian Dream Girl" also unfolds amid Martsch's typical guitar flourishes (which, to a critical ear, come across as almost the only flaw in the album, through sheer redundancy). Still, it's precisely these tracks that foreshadow the future artistic developments of Built To Spill.

"Hidden Track" is just a final joke, "a preview of the next Built To Spill album", as the off-screen voice announces. In reality, it's a sticky tide of irreconcilable styles crammed into a couple of minutes, which seems to suggest that a distinct artistic personality persists even amid total sonic chaos.

A personality that Doug Martsch cultivates with diligence, cloning himself across several parallel projects. In 1994 he formed Halo Benders with Calvin Johnson (Beat Happening) and Steve Fisk (Screaming Trees), and in 1996 he recorded an EP of four new songs with Caustic Resin (Brett Nelson's band).

The band as a whole gained experience and notoriety, playing the touring Lollapalooza festival in 1995.

The big leap to Warner

Built To Spill are a magnificent exception in the world of music. Further proof of this lies in the fact that, unlike what happens to almost every other band, the moment they signed to a major label (Warner) coincided with their artistic zenith. It's with their first two albums for the Looney Tunes' parent company that Martsch's mathematical obsession found a fully coherent and consistent outlet.

The classic lineup now consists of, besides the leader, drummer Scott Plouf (ex-Spinanes), bassist Brett Nelson, cellist John McMahon, Robert Roth on mellotron, and, still occasionally, guitarist Brett Netson.

Nomen omen for Perfect From Now On (Warner, 1997). Here we must bow before genuine "classic" works in their rigorous harmonic-melodic structure, which evoke psychedelic landscapes of staggering brilliance. It's a journey into the mind free of artifice and easy effects, aboard a spaceship engineered down to the smallest detail to proceed with confidence and precision. Pure mathematics, able to abstract itself completely until it flows freely through the cosmos and scatters into the black holes at the edges of the known universe. Martsch's guitar talent here takes the shape of a shapeshifting creature that surveys every possible archetype of the six strings. The patterns repeat, alternate, chase and intersect one another, turning the listening experience into a mystical journey achieved through an encounter with the absolute.

Sequences of different colours, juxtaposed for contrast like polished tiles on a sonic floor that moves, breathes, grows and lives a life of its own.

It's one long sequence of melodic openings and slow restarts, leading inevitably to a masterful solo, as in "Randy Described Eternity". Here the arpeggios waver over a single chord, and just when the track seems to have nothing more to offer, it suddenly swells with the entrance of the vocals; a faint plea that struggles to push through the thick wall of guitars, sweating and bleeding to carve out even the smallest opening.

Or a rapid series of triangulations between the distortion of the first guitar and the melodic fluidity of the second, with the sly complicity of the cello ("I Would Hurt A Fly").

"Kicked It In The Sun" is a restorative holiday after a year of hard work. Basking on the beach of a Mediterranean island, with the scorching rays of a father-sun embodying the wisdom of past millennia reflected off six metal strings. So much nostalgia in Martsch's voice and in that refrain, melted like Dalí's clocks. A deep stillness. Then a sudden shift, and we're catapulted into another track, and then another. It's the return to the frenzy of reality after the dream; rhythm and sound grow restless, accelerate, and the performance turns into an impetuous act of accusation.

By the time we reach "Velvet Waltz", nothing else matters anymore. The world seems to stop. A slow, train-like gait in three-four time, gently marked out by guitar and drums, while the second guitar begins to weave until it creates a vortex driven by relentless rhythm, an eternal piston over which Martsch seems willing/able to improvise forever. A sense of infinity that lingers even after the track ends, staying in the depths of the soul like a (thoroughly pleasant) karma one can never quite shake off.

The airy introduction of "Stop The Show" precedes a crescendo of drums and guitar that recalls the singular experience of Thin White Rope (for the few who don't know them, a band prematurely forgotten but absolutely worth rediscovering!). A syncopated rhythm and an effective pop refrain introduce two minutes of nervous confusion, in which the new-wave-style jingle jangle winks at industrial bleakness.

The acoustic intro to "Made-Up Dreams" is misleading. Built To Spill love mischievously subverting expectations. A circular loop, with the voice seeming to come from somewhere else entirely, and only afterwards does the melody arrive over a bed of strings, giving way to a playful chase between the two guitars.

Even when the song format seems to peek through, as in "Untrustable/ Part 2 (About Someone Else)", it's really just a tease. Little by little you find yourself facing a complex suite split into multiple parts, with a village-band finale that makes it even more original. A game of Chinese boxes (or Russian dolls, if you prefer), in which other microstructures are grafted onto a main harmonic structure, and still more onto those, the way a botanist tripping on acid might do.

Across all eight compositions there are no empty spaces, only fullness upon fullness, in an intoxicating, continuous binge that demands real physical effort to listen closely enough to catch every detail. Psychedelia here doesn't live through free lysergic digressions, as (for example) with the Grateful Dead, nor through the hypnotic circularity dear to the shoegaze movement. The altered state of consciousness instead comes from the slow transmutation of instrumental sequences, with small parts added and subtracted through harmonious movements that cut through the air like strikes from an ancient martial art. All of it carried out with aristocratic detachment from mere matter.

From Redundancy to Synthesis

At the end of the decade, the release of Keep It Like a Secret (Warner, 1999) brought not only critical acclaim but also the band's first significant commercial success. The algebraic structure of the compositions remains, though it's streamlined to reach a wider audience without losing an ounce of emotional force.

The slimming-down diet works purely in terms of dilation and articulation, but the internal multidimensionality remains intact, registering shifts in rhythm, sound, form and expressive tone within individual tracks. A dizzying whirl of ideas that others haven't managed to achieve in an entire career.

"Time Trap" is emblematic in this sense. The slide, more liquid than ever, folds into the faint opening noises; then other guitar lines carve forcefully alongside the drums, coiling into an existential spiral that eases and ratchets up the pressure in turns. A series of muted chords brings out the lyrics, intoned by Martsch in a pleading voice, until a sudden shift into an odd time signature heralds the slide solo in a finale like a liberation party.

And then there's "You Were Right". What can you say? At least four seemingly irreconcilable high points coexist in perfect harmony under the same roof. A choral attack and you immediately plunge into the depths of the maelstrom. Then the melody kicks in and you find yourself serenely lying on the grass in Central Park listening to Simon & Garfunkel. But as always it's the leader's guitar that breaks the rhythm, this time with an obsessive pattern repeated to the point of exhaustion. Just bass and drums left hanging, and, toward the end, there's still room for a brand-new melody.

"Broken Chairs" is, for this writer, the absolute masterpiece in terms of experimentation meeting catchiness, building to a thrilling crescendo. Guitars interlock in a gripping web of midfield passing that not even Spain's World Cup-winning side could match... Then the lead guitar brings in the melody, achingly sweet, counterbalanced by an extraordinary syncopated rhythm section, the true prima donna of this spasmodic, glorious finale. A '90s "Freebird", as far as celebrating the sweeping power of the six-string goes.

The rest of the album is no less impressive.

In "Carry the Zero", Martsch's solo languidly spills over the melodic path to venture into new, unexplored spaces, in an atmosphere of messianic anticipation.

"Temporarily Blind" is marked by a crystalline jangle on the six-string, while the dark passages opened up by the jarring chord changes are richly filled in by the melody. The drums lay down an unusual funky rhythm, almost in complete isolation, before the other instruments interlock in an intricately choreographed interplay; a well-oiled machine that demands seasoned performers, ready to turn a cold script into warm poetry. And toward the end, a faint chirping, almost like a newborn's whimper, lends a slight unease that lingers until the track ends.

That unease also wraps around "Bad Light", a dark track in the vein of Lanegan (with a morbidly hypnotic arpeggio), stagnating in the swamp of the unconscious until thirty seconds from the end, when the guitar unexpectedly breaks the rhythm and the spell.

At times the guitar ripples are barely perceptible, built on circular sequences modeled on the earliest Feelies. Such is the case with "Else", which leaves the listener holding their breath with a surprisingly melodious vocal over an off-beat rhythm.

The same goes for the ending of "The Plan", which darts off with a sprinter's burst and then proceeds through interweaving guitars punctuated by drum rolls, before expanding into psychedelic flashes and finally settling gently onto waves rippled by the six-string.

The lighter tracks are "Center Of The Universe", quite saccharine, with a driving rhythm and Martsch's cheerful delivery recalling Rem's "It's The End Of The World", and the punk-pop echoes of their early days on the fast, punchy "Sidewalk", which nonetheless doesn't skip the sharp guitar flashes cutting through the song's fabric like blades. Postmodern art, like Fontana's slashed canvases.

Compared to its hugely celebrated predecessor, Keep It Like A Secret loses none of its appeal, even if the two records' approaches are in some ways opposite. While Perfect From Now On allows itself the luxury of unfolding slowly, shedding its layers bit by bit with elegance, this second album, with vain exhibitionism, gives itself away immediately in all its splendor, gripped by an irrepressible desire.

It's precisely this immediate enjoyability that makes it the recommended entry point for anyone wanting to discover the Idaho band for the first time.

At this point in their career, the quality material has really piled up. It's only fitting, then, that a live album should arrive featuring sprawling versions (running up to twenty minutes) of some of the band's "classics" and covers that outline their earliest influences (Cortez The Killer chief among them). The title? Simply and "imaginatively"... Live (Warner, 2000).

Just... songs

Their fifth studio album, Ancient Melodies Of The Future (Warner, 2001), is, in every sense, a collection of songs that shed the epic character of the past to focus on melody.

Built To Spill now sound like an even purer version of Rem, especially in the way they handle a fairly limited and repetitive sonic palette, chiseling away at the rough edges to bring out the formal cleanliness of the songs.

Average track length around four minutes, with more compactness and fewer instrumental detours; sure, the magic of years past is gone, but the overall result can still make plenty of critically-pampered indie-pendent pseudo-heroes look like amateurs.

Martsch's softer side emerges above all on "The Host", a big romantic number filled with the yearning of strings. Very mellow and easy-going. "Alarmed" also has a dreamy opening suspended in the clear spring air. But then it grows exponentially, veering toward country territory with touches of Garcia, ending in a crescendo that briefly brings back the splendor of the two previous albums.

"Strange" itself opens with an attack reminiscent of the Pixies' "Where's My Mind?", but the background keyboards clearly signal lighter territory ahead, and even the guitars lose a bit of their edge, settling into a more normal sound if not in phrasing then at least in tone.

"Trimmed and Burning" and "Don't Try" are exceptions to the otherwise soft mood. The former has a chilling opening. It's reminiscent of the Dream Syndicate, with Precoda's acid guitar having clearly been more than an inspiration for Martsch. The latter is the hardest track of the bunch, easing up only in the middle section with a repeated chorus before the finale. What's missing, though, is the usual harmonic breathing room that once gave the shifts in intensity a unified direction. That breathing room returns, to great delight, on the following "You Are", a relentless, interstellar journey; a flight with wings spread wide through the clear sky of imagination that, after a minute of romantic foreplay, lets loose without inhibition into a joyous cosmic orgasm.

After such intense emotions, it's time to unwind with "Fly Around My Pretty Little Miss". A fast, very easy-going 60s-style track. Perhaps the most optimistic song Built To Spill have ever written, a sort of "It's The End Of The World" (again... could it be one of Martsch's favorite songs...?), albeit a sunnier one.

The four musicians from Athens pop up even more forcefully on the closing "The Weather". A solo acoustic guitar that turns electric, folding in keyboards before erupting into the only solo on this instrument in Built To Spill's whole career. Very "Reveal", with a minimalist, Eno-esque electronic ending.

At certain moments, there's a clear will to break from the usual harmonic/melodic patterns. In particular, "In Your Mind" deserves a place of its own in Built To Spill's discography, thanks to an unprecedented, mysterious, Eastern-tinged atmosphere.

Also striking is the lone bluesy slide guitar that opens "Happiness", which then kicks into Beatles-esque rhythms straight out of the "Sergent Pepper" era.

The long-awaited return to the past

In 2002, Martsch found temporary refuge in Louisiana, immersing himself in the swamps of the blues to reveal his solo, acoustic side on Now You Know (Warner, 2002).

After a long tour in support of the album, the band reunited from 2003 to 2005 for a run of over 150 dates. The much-anticipated return to the studio came only on April 11, 2005, following a long chain of difficulties and numerous delays.

You In Reverse (Warner, 2006) is the mature fruit of Martsch, Nelson, Plouf and Roth. Guitarist Brett Netson now appears only as outside support, while Sam Coomes of Almost plays keyboards, and Steve Lobdell, owner of the Portland recording studio, contributes guitar, piano, vibraphone and percussion.

There's a strong urge to return to the complex compositions of the golden years, as shown by the opening triumphant charge of "Goin' Against Your Mind". Bright melodies and sweeping instrumental harmonies combine to produce results that still manage to surprise, despite the passing years.

The bright moment is clouded with shadows in March 2006, when Martsch undergoes surgery for a detached retina, an event that forces the band to cancel several tour dates. A darker shadow falls when Andy Capps (by then a former member of the band) is found dead under circumstances that were never fully clarified.

Toward normalization?

Critics unanimously applaud Built To Spill's rebirth, and the band takes the opportunity to secure a peaceful old age by touring a full performance of their masterpiece Perfect From Now On.

Toward the end of the decade, There Is No Enemy (Warner, 2009) perhaps closes the arc of Built To Spill under the sign of a natural "normalization" — that is, an elegant packaging, more formal than substantial, of their enormous artistic potential.

Youthful restlessness is now definitively replaced by a melancholy disillusionment (evoked even by the trumpet solos of "Life's A Dream" and "Things Fall Apart"), testifying to the attainment of a safe and comfortable harbor.

A consolidated certainty, some would say; the debasement of commercialization, others would claim. Neither definition, however, does justice to the real figure of Doug Martsch and his bandmates. What is certain is that Built To Spill will go down in music history thanks to an approach to sound that is as deeply personal as it is universal, as unpredictable as it is, in the end, repetitive and redundant.

Profound contrasts, in short (like math and passion) — the kind from which myths are made. Just like Built To Spill.

But the veteran crew of guitar rock still won't settle, drawing on their now-monumental experience to inject the right fire into their eighth album, Untethered Moon (2015), featuring a brand-new rhythm section. "Living Zoo" is pyrotechnic, almost pop-core, almost liberating in tempo, as are the free-form ballad "All Our Songs" and the Neil Young-like dirge "So", all brimming with psychedelic overtones. The 8 minutes of "When I'm Blind" then serve as a vehicle for the leader's chaotic virtuosity. The only thing missing is a balance between the leader's personal songwriting and this rediscovered improvisational verve, but in fact this stands as the fourth cardinal point of their history, alongside Ultimate Alternative Wavers, Perfect From Now On and You In Reverse.

In 2017 the band toured alongside Daniel Johnston. In memory of the Austin-based singer-songwriter and those dates together, Built To Spill made a tribute album: Built To Spill Plays the Songs of Daniel Johnston. 

They deliver a nice tribute, but a flat and all-too-opaque one. Johnston's songs – made with few means yet eclectic, even in tone, and charged with strong emotion – are flattened by the use of a standard lineup across all the tracks (electric and acoustic guitars, bass and drums), and probably hampered further by a flat production. "Life in Vain" is emblematic of this: the comparison with the original simply doesn't hold up. 

The vocal performance is probably the biggest point of divergence between the original versions and these covers: Doug Martsch lacks the whimsy and naive irony so beloved in Johnston's versions, that quaver, at times even unsteady, but always a sign of personal expressive sincerity.

For the following album the band signed with Sub Pop. When The Wind Forgets Your Name isn't a homecoming, even though it might seem like one in every respect - quite the opposite, it's a great sprint forward. Rough-hewn and grainy, yet warm as an embrace, "Gonna Loose" is the perfect opener for a joyous, restless album, at times even euphoric, as in the closing moments of "Comes the Day". Like when the guitar practically skips along in the frenzied "Never Alright", or when it sets off into the fanciful, elusive flourishes of the gorgeous "Spiderweb", a genuine web of infectious, sticky indie-rock love in which you find yourself trapped.

Seven years have now passed since the band's last proper studio effort, Untethered Moon (Warner Bros, 2015), while only two have gone by since the little-loved Built to Spill Plays the Songs of Daniel Johnston. For Melanie Radford (bass) and Teresa Esguerra (drums), both of whom joined the lineup in 2019, this therefore marks their first time tackling original songwriting alongside Doug, one of the most beloved indie guitar heroes of the '90s and the spiritual son of Neil Young. The spectre of "dad" indeed turns up - along with that of the other "godson" J Mascis (Dinosaur Jr.) - in "Fool's Gold" and "Elements", the latter however charged by the synergy with the new rhythm section. Playful ("Rocksteady") and reflective ("Alright"), tough and psychedelic enough to break the song free of its usual paths (right there in "Elements"), the two musicians have brought further energy and valuable ideas, even though it's clear, now more than ever, that Built To Spill is essentially Martsch's solo project.

When The Wind Forgets Your Name is an album that finds the band moving within its well-known comfort zone, trotting out the best special effects from their repertoire song after song. Those who love them epic and buoyant can't help but adore riffs and guitar flights soaring off into the stratosphere, while those craving an instantly catchy vocal melody will find themselves humming the falsetto of "Understood" in no time. Overall, the album is a welcome breath of fresh air that betrays no fatigue in a formula that has, admittedly, been revisited more than a few times.

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