-=- SHGZ -=-
* Shoegaze * Indie * Post-Rock * Grunge * Dream Pop * Psych-Rock * Ethereal *
ARTIST..: Toro Y Moi
ALBUM...: Underneath The Pine
GENRE...: Indie
STYLE...: Indie Pop, Neo-Psychedelia, Synth Funk, Chillwave
STYLE...: Psychedelic Pop, Leftfield, Downtempo, Synth-pop
YEAR....: 2011
LABEL...: Carpark
COUNTRY.: Oakland, CA, USA
BORN....: 7 November 1986, Columbia, SC,USA
ENCODER.: FLAC 1.3.1 -8 -V
BITRATE.: 906 kbps avg
QUALITY.: 44.1kHz / 2 channels
SOURCE..: CD
TRACKS..: 11
SIZE....: 257.95 MB
URL..: https://toroymoi.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toro_y_Moi
https://toroymoi.blogspot.com
https://www.facebook.com/toroymoi
- TRACKLIST
1 Intro / Chi-Chi 2:25
2 New Beat 4:04
3 Go With You 3:57
4 Divina 2:18
5 Before I'm Done 2:42
6 Got Blinded 3:09
7 How I Know 4:05
8 Light Black 3:23
9 Still Sound 4:29
10 Good Hold 2:27
11 Elise 6:01
Total Playtime: 39:00
When Chaz Bundick sang, "I found a job I do it fine/ Not what I want but
still I try," on "Blessa", it became Causers of This' most-quoted lyric for
obvious reasons. Not only can all of us relate to that sentiment at some
point in our lives, but it also drew a direct line between the escapism of
home-made electro-pop and the lives of most of the people creating it. Talk
about Hipstamatic prints, Ariel Pink, and surfing all you want, but y'know,
it's also the economy, stupid. Now, I've never shared a cubicle with Bundick,
but that kind of resignation is completely at odds with his work ethic as
Toro Y Moi, given the steady stream of remixes and side projects he's
released in the time since. Just over a year later, he's already the first of
the A-listers from this scene to release a follow-up. But if he was feeling
any pressure to validate himself and his peers, Underneath the Pine doesn't
show it. The album may be too lyrically opaque to have a line as bloggable as
"Blessa"'s, but it's a far richer and more accomplished whole, and it makes a
strong case for Bundick as an artist with scope, ambition, and a firm grasp
of how to balance the two.
Underneath the Pine begins a little like the last album, with a wobbly,
splayed-out chord backing Bundick's cooed vocal salutation. But where
"Blessa"'s murky, aquamarine production set the tone for most of Causers,
this album's "Intro/Chi Chi" is a textured instrumental that trigger memories
of Air's "La Femme D'Argent" and underscores one of Bundick's most overlooked
assets: his ability to create an appealingly lush ambiance. That mood plays a
central role in Underneath the Pine, as much of the album sheds Bunwick's
synth-pop roots in favor of a vastly expanded instrumental palette that
includes organ, pianos, chimes, and plenty of live drumming. Bundick's skill
as an arranger is especially evident in Pine's midsection: though casually
paced and humid as his native South Carolina, it pulls from the French pop
and krautrock obsessions of Broadcast and Stereolab, imbuing pastoral,
acoustic plucks and synth drones with rhythmic purpose, and making retro chic
somehow still sound futuristic.
All of this sonic exploration is in service to Bundick's growth as a
songwriter. Big choruses like the one on "How I Know" come unexpectedly
during what at first appear to be endless motorik grooves, as plainspoken
vocal melodies give way to double-helix harmonies. Even the tracks that keep
a lower profile maintain enough ballast to prevent the zone-outs that
pockmarked Causers. They also serve to set off the big singles, "New Beat"
and "Still Sound". Heard individually, those songs' straight-up funk delivery
mostly sounded like twists on a successful formula, but in context on
Underneath the Pine, they underscore how Bundick's knack for analog warmth
always comes in the name of physicality and groove. You may want to try and
peg where the drum sounds come from-- maybe Innervisions, maybe even Midnite
Vultures-- but rhythmic interplay this addictive has to be felt, not simply
conjured from memory.
Because Toro Y Moi is so closely linked with the likes of Neon Indian, Washed
Out, and Memory Tapes, it's tempting to read into the success of Underneath
the Pine as some predictor of those bands' collective staying power, or a
direction others might take. But Bundick seems to be following nothing but
his own internal compass. Late in the album, "Good Hold" comes off like an
Eno tribute of detuned piano dissonance, and then morphs into the blissful
glide of album closer, "Elise". It's a fitting send-off to Underneath the
Pine, suggesting that Toro Y Moi's first great album probably won't be his
last, or his best.
*
Probably because its very vocabulary came so alarmingly close to self-parody
- chillwave, glo-fi, hypnogogic pop, etc. - similar-sounding material by the
likes of Memory Tapes, Neon Indian, Washed Out and numerous others was
quickly defined in disposable, temporal terms. The Sound Of The Summer Of
2009 (even though all three of those artists' most notable records to date
were released in September and October of that year). 'Recession-era music:
low-budget and danceable,' suggested the New York Times, sketching the sort
of reductive soundbite-link between macroeconomics and musical approach that
broadsheets love to come up with. Oh yeah, and yet another manifestation of
Eighties nostalgia (MEMORY Tapes, getit?) - despite the fact that pretty much
everybody involved was born three or four years before 1990, tops.
In short, the dates don't add up. They never do. Unless, that is, you
approach this bloggiest of scenes not as a scene, but as a moment. As Chaz
Bundick puts it, chillwave was a starting-point, 'just a small little period
where we all were, coincidentally making similar music.' Moments being, by
definition, disposable and temporal.
Such a paradigm-shift is, I think, required if a chillwave artist is to be
understood on his (and it is almost universally his, for whatever reasons)
own terms, as an individual trajectory rather than a part of a collective
plateau. Especially when that chillwave artist is Toro Y Moi, Bundick's
hypnogogic alter-ego, a man whose music has only ever been a mass of strange,
compelling deviations from the beachy, hooky, Deadbeat Summery connotations
conjured up by a word I refuse to use any longer. Causers of This was a
disconcertingly unstable set of contradictions coaxed into throbbing together
by an imaginatively mournful take on dancepop production. And now, according
to new single 'Still Sound' and its accompanying Super-8 video, Toro Y Moi
has become a band! Curtis Mayfield's backing band, indeed, circa 1972.
'Still Sound' is a pretty good introduction to about half of Underneath the
Pine, a record Toro Y Moi had already started making when Causers... was
released. It proves that Bundick wasn't lying when he said he was replacing
samples with real instruments. And with its ambient, abstract, grapefruity
breakdown, it demonstrates that the results are hardly verse/chorus
straightforward - that the aim to ease, electronically, into a listener's
subconscious has by no means been abandoned. But in its ultimate resolution
into the shape of its original funky hook, it is unrepresentative of large
parts of an album in which ideas often come and go every bit as dreamily and
structurelessly as they did on the debut.
And so for every 'New Beat', with its !!! vocals and Duran Duran-meets-Sonic
the Hedgehog keyboard squeals, there's a 'Got Blinded,' a track that keeps on
coming up with jazzily chromatic instrumentals, resolving them with Beach
House harmonies, and then fragmenting this human element until it falls
apart. And every time this chillwave-with-a-band approach starts to do what
many would have expected it to do all along, i.e. sound quite a lot like
Animal Collective on Merriweather, Underneath the Pine suddenly remembers the
lessons of Causers. 'Go With You' builds and builds into little bursts of
chorus and then sort of comments on them, in between layers of measured throb
- the effect sounding something like classical variations, and genuinely
musically intelligent for it. And 'How I Know' channels Avey Tare and Panda
Bear at their most joyous, not to mention the Beach Boys (its most
comprehensible lyrics a blend of "are you having fun?" and "will you have
some fun?") but soon gives way to 'Light Black's bassy, atonal, meandering
intent.
These shifts, so often enacted through compressed contrasts between the vocal
and the instrumental/electronic, mean that the purely instrumental/electronic
tracks suffer by comparison. Opener 'Intro/Chi Chi' sounds like 'Loomer' by
My Bloody Valentine given one of those horrible chillout 'remixes' so
ubiquitous in the late Nineties. And 'Divina's attempt to offer a respite of
Casio strings and simplistic piano lines halfway through the record is
entirely unnecessary, considering the shimmering conclusions of tracks like
'Before I'm Done' do a far more interesting job of slowing things down.
Somewhat confusingly, Underneath the Pine's final couple of tracks take the
harmonic ambience and direct instrumentation of the rest of the album and
make like Causers, 'Good Hold' making an eccentric vocal trill and cinematic
chord sequences sound as though they're blowing around in the wind, and
closer 'Elise' burying possibly the poppiest melody on the entire record in a
haze of synthetic effect. The overall effect is like a lighter, more
self-conscious, throwaway, altogether 2011 take on David Bowie's Low, a
collision of popstar and avant-production that is all the more interesting
for not quite knowing where it is
*
When it dropped in 2011, Underneath the Pine was the hotly anticipated
follow-up to an auspicious debut. Further raising the stakes was the question
of chillwave's survival. This was the first time any of the artists
originally lumped in with the micro-movement in 2009 and 2010 had made it to
their second album, and Bear could either fine-tune what he'd already done on
the previous year's Causers of This or go in a completely different
direction. And as we know now, Bear's career is defined by his refusal to
fine-tune. He's never made an album that sounds like the last one, and his
catalog has room for the Auto-Tuned trap-R&B of Boo Boo; the spaced-out
desert rock of Star Stuff with the Mattson 2; and the wine-dark house of
Anything in Return. In retrospect, Underneath the Pine feels like the moment
when Bear refused to simply be an indie phenom and anointed himself a career
artist.
Stripped of the electronic subductions that defined Causers of This,
Underneath the Pine draws from the '60s and '70s. A harpsichord is never far
away, and the bass thrums with the same warmth as Herbie Flowers'
performances on "Histoire de Melody Nelson" and "Walk on the Wild Side." "Got
Blinded" and "Elise" whip out blinding Beach Boys harmonies, but they don't
emerge at the climax of airtight pop compositions but bubble naturally out of
deep, earthy jams. Bear isn't trying to write a symphony to God, but these
songs suggest he might have a few symphonies to God in his rotation,
alongside old soundtracks, psych, funk, French pop, maybe even some indie
bands like Broadcast that distill these influences. It sounds sumptuously
analog, bassy and rich, less like the product of bedroom tinkering than of
the long, luxuriously stoned sessions you used to hear about during the
making of the great rock albums. He sounds less delighted by his expanded
audience than by his expanded budget.
This reissue includes an instrumental version of Underneath the Pine. What
those disembodied beats make clear is how important wordless vocals are to
this music-more important, maybe, than lyrics. Filtered oohs and aahs take
over the melodic duties from the usual guitars and keyboards, and just as the
catchiest bit of Causers of This ' "Blessa" was the falsetto cry he let out
just before the song's spidery coda, so are some of the most memorable
moments here the little sighs he lets loose at the beginning of "New Beat"
and "How I Know," accompanied by big resonant synth chords. When Bear needs
to deepen a song, he just turns on his pedals and coos through as much reverb
as he can, as if he's manually smearing the song with his hand until it
becomes an abstract splotch of paint. These tracks seem to reveal their
essential elements at the beginning, then slowly subtract and replace parts
until you're hearing a completely different beast from what you started with.
An album that zeroed in on the stunning harmonies of "Elise" or even the
fleet-footed funk track "Still Sound" might've been hailed as the refinement
Bear needed to break through. But an album that sounds like a more polished
Causers of This could've been brilliant, too, and it would've left us with an
Underneath the Pine-free world, which would be a sad place to be indeed.
Underneath the Pine doesn't mark a career peak so much as the beginning of a
long wilderness period. The richness of his subsequent career, both as an
artist and as a sort of den mother to fellow Bay Area musicians, makes up for
his lack of a true masterpiece while keeping open the possibility that one is
still to come. He's spent the last ten years shuttling from one idea to the
next, but isn't that better from repeating the same idea over and over again?
Underneath the Pine feels like the moment when Bear refused to simply be an
indie phenom and anointed himself a career artist.
*
A friend introduced me to the very talented Toro Y Moi when he suggested I
check out "Still Sound," Underneath The Pine's first single. After the first
five seconds I was immediately hooked and wanted more of the soulful funk
sounds.
Ever since that day, that track has been my go-to iPod jam for hectic days,
bad traffic jams and when I have a mean case of the "reds" (watch Breakfast
at Tiffany's to understand this reference). That song is my "feel good" track
and is in heavy rotation on my current list of fave tunes.
After getting my hands on his debut album Causes of This (that came out in
2010), I couldn't believe it was the same artist. Sure, there were similar
elements like the very angelic voice of Toro Y Moi, but it was heavy on the
electro beats; something that "Still Sound" was totally obsolete of. Don't
get me wrong, it's still a great debut album, but it totally threw me off
that mellow Toro Y Moi sound I was craving.
After hearing Underneath The Pine, I got what I was missing! The Columbia,
South Carolina native, Chaz Bundick, totally nailed the perfect melodic album
that you'll want to play it from track one until it ends at 11. Having spent
the year listening to film composers like Fran oise de Roubaix and Ennio
Morricone, Chaz returned to his parents' home in Columbia, the birthplace of
many Toro tracks of yore, to bring his new ideas to fruition. The result of
these sessions is Underneath the Pine, a deeply personal album that sees him
putting down the samples and electronics and relying completely on live
instrumentation, which provides for a very soulful musical entity.
Of course, my fave track is "Still Sound," which you've all heard by now, as
it spread like wildfire through the Web. The next single, "New Beat" is
another you might have already heard of (again, thanks to music blogs) and an
amazing upbeat, funky jazz track that'll have you shuffling your feet and
swaying back and forth to the dreamy voice of Toro Y Moi (something that can
be said on every track of the album, making the experience a bit more
celestial). Fused with '70s-inspired vibes of soul, funk and disco all rolled
into one, this jam is definitely one for the dance floors.
"Go With You" is heavily filled with keyboards/synths before the funky beats
emerge. I like to call this one the "celestial jazz" track that puts you on a
natural musical high. Then you have "Divina," which is an instrumental track,
but nonetheless amazing. (And I'm not one for instrumentals, but I played it
twice because I loved it so much!)
"Before I'm Done" starts with beautiful guitar riffs before it opens up with
Toro Y Moi's heavenly vocals and is a more ballad-like track. "Got Blinded"
is a keyboard infused song that starts off sort of fast but then slows to
more mellow tones. "Light Black" adds a bit more of psychedelic dreaminess
that almost puts you in a musical trance.
"Good Hold" has a harsh piano start (something unexpected following "Still
Sound") that really catches your attention, but then calms down when his
voice comes in subduing you into literally a "good hold." Finally "Elise" is
the perfect up-temp, jazz infused track to end the Toro Y Moi dreamy
experience with its catch beats that make you want to snap your fingers. The
instrumental piece in the middle is beyond amazing.
Seriously, Underneath The Pine is a one of those albums you will love for
years to come and always come back to when you want to chill out and just
enjoy GOOD music. It's not one of those albums that can easily be classified
to be pop, indie, electro, jazz or R&B, which makes it even more compelling;
it really is just GREAT music. There are not many of these albums nowadays,
so when good music finally hits you in the face, embrace the shit out of it!
-=- SHGZ -=-
-=-=-==-=-=-
Shoegaze
is a genre of alternative rock that
originated in the late 80s. The genre is very
difficult to define, and it is even more difficult to evaluate music
within it. Generally, the genre is characterized by its
shimmering vocals, reverberating guitars, and
textural distortion that create
a tranquil, opaque
feeling.
---==--==---