Toro y Moi

Recently, I had the pleasure of seeing Toro y Moi perform at San Diego’s Casbah. I was able to catch up with Chaz Bundick before the show and talk to him a bit about composition, content and consequence.

I remember seeing, recently, a video of a session you did where you built a version of your song “You Hid” from entirely organic sources. Is this how most of your work, Causers of This included, starts?

That’s actually how most of the album was put together, from original parts. I mean, there are definitely samples present, but they’re so EQ’d and reverbed-out. So everything really does begin and develop in a mostly organic way, just with some added texture.

There were certain parts on the album where I couldn’t really tell where the line was drawn – whether it was something synthesized from the start on a laptop or built naturally and looped into shape.

It’s definitely a lot of fun to do (record something and then sample it later) but I think I’ve gotten the best of both worlds.

Now there’s something I have to ask. See, I was pretty much shut out of society for about a year’s time due to various circumstances and in the time since, all this shit’s popped up about something which I fail to fully accept the concept of: “Chillwave”. If the internet is to be believed, you’re somehow associated with this.

Well, I guess it’s meant to describe music that just sounds “chill”. I think that blog, Hipster Runoff, coined it. If this is something new, I think putting a name to it is just something to help different people relate to it. I couldn’t really put a name on Toro Y Moi myself. People ask me what it is, I tell them that it’s pop music.

I wonder if that remains accurate still? Your new single sounds far removed from anything on Causers of This.

That’s an older song. I recorded that back in 2006. Carpark asked me to do something for the summer and I thought it fit really well.

Being a single, is it going to be included on any releases in the future?

Probably not. It is similar to what’ll be on the next record in that it’s going to feature a more traditional setup with regards to instruments and structure but other than that it won’t be too dissimilar to Causers.

When do you think you’ll find time for this? You seem like you’re pretty busy lately.

There’s so much going on – the fanbase has really increased since the Kanye blog and we head to Europe for two months immediately following this stretch, so I’m hoping to be able to take some time off in November. Go back home, see some friends.

Do you think it’ll be strange seeing everyone back home again after all of this? Everyone you graduated college with will have just started out their lives, pretty formative stuff, but you’ve been almost transplanted away from all of that.

I feel out of the loop, definitely. I’m from a small town where you pretty much keep in touch with everyone. Something like this doesn’t come along very often.

So having just finished a degree in graphic design, was this necessarily where you expected to end up?

Not really. This was always a goal, always a priority, but I didn’t have any idea it would snowball the way it has. And snowball it has.

From being a relative unknown a year ago, Chaz has come to be an unofficial part of the “chillwave” caucus. What has set him apart from his contemporaries has been his ability to infuse a certain spirit, a certain swing into a microgenre that knows how to meander at best. I came into the performance expecting, hoping, that the live translation would resonate with the same confident presence as Causers of This. What I got was something close.

If there is anything about an individual to be interpreted from a performance, I interpret a sight of a man who doesn’t quite know what he’s involved in yet. The substance behind Toro y Moi both recorded and performed is unquestionable – if there is any artist worth heralding the aforementioned microgenre into something full fledged, this is definitely it. Supported by a live bassist and drummer (on loan, if I remember correctly, from the group of artists behind Fork and Spoon Records), the set sounds just as alive and throbbing as it did when recorded (taking into account, of course, the piss-poor mixing from whatever douche was running the soundboard).

But take a single step beyond how things actually sounded and one thing becomes clear – very few there really knew why they were there and I truly wonder if Chaz did either. I chalk this up to the relative infancy of the movement, but while this is excusable it fails to make this fact any less apparent.

Ultimately I expect brilliant things from the recorded Toro y Moi and sturdier things for the live incarnation. What exists is a work in progress that, while exciting to watch the construction, will definitely be stronger in completion.

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