Chaz Bundick suprises release after release as his Toro Y Moi project continues to carve out a unique spot in today’ pop landscape. One of our undoubted highlights at SXSW, so good we caught them twice.
“Just layers upon layers upon layers of warm synths and melodic vocal snippets, with Bundick’s capable falsetto being the icing on the cake. With ‘Anything In Return‘, Toro Y Moi took a huge step forward in his singing, songwriting, and production technique. Sky’s the limit for this young man” – Roger Jao “Lots of deliberation went into formulating my end of year list, but the only thing that was certain from the start for me was this album. A bit anticlimactic since it dropped in January, but throughout the year I always knew in the pit of my stomach that nothing had yet topped it. From top to bottom, every song is so poignant, fully formed, loveable, danceable, and poppy that I’m sort of shocked at its lack of representation among the lists of other critics. I preface that I am biased in my love for Toro Y Moi’s music. Because of our shared home state (S. Carolina), my love for all his releases, and mostly because what Toro makes is like a grander, suped-up version of the kind of joints all my favorite indie bands, bedroom producers, and rappers are trying to craft. I remember vividly listening to the first track on this, blazed to extinction, and losing all sectors of my mind and belief at how each layer came in more randomly, but perfectly than the last. This dude is the king of my musical world, because he concocts audible smoothies of all my essential fruits. You will hear a song like “So Many Details”, the strength at which its drums snap, and you’d bet you’re hearing a hip hop song (proven by the ensuing Hodgy Beats remix). But then it drives into an 80’s style synth ballad, which soon disintegrates into something completely futuristic, with synths melting and oscillating in and out of each other. All of this never feels like too much, like some child got into the finger paints and turned them brown. Toro’s drips are more Jackson Pollack, clashing without reason, but upon you standing back to look, you’ll smile with wonder” – Daniel Benny
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