Детали релиза : Toro Y Moi - Causers Of This (2010) [FLAC (tracks + .cue)]

Toro Y Moi (a.k.a. Columbia, South Carolina’s Chaz Bundick) is the sound the world has been waiting for. This multi-cultural juggernaut gathers up the best musical elements from around the globe— R&B, Indie Rock, Electronic Dance and Psychedelica —and creates something-freaking-else!

Over the course of his first groundbreaking full length Causers Of This, Toro Y Moi turns the aforementioned musics upside-down with his breathtakingly innovative approach. The incendiary power of Toro Y Moi’s funky synth and guitar play, pumping digital rhythms and gorgeously bright vocal harmonies makes for a formidable combination. A soon to be masterpiece of a currently unnamed genre!

Toro Y Moi is 23 year old Columbia, South Carolina native and resident Chaz Bundick. After earning a BFA in Graphic Design at The University of South Carolina, Chaz decided to push his music further now that he has more time on his hands. His mom came from the Phillipines to the United States, where she met her future husband (who’s African American) in college. They lived in New York City taking in all the wonderful cultural influences the city’s rising underground scene had to offer at the time (late 70s/early 80s). Deciding to slow down and be closer to family, they moved to Columbia, South Carolina where they had their first child…

Chaz Bundick’s methods are constantly changing and evolving. Heavily influenced by his parent’s vinyl and tape collection, he also possesses great admiration for contemporary influences like Animal Collective, Sonic Youth, J Dilla, and Daft Punk. Like most prepubescent teens, he had his punk band and once that died out, the “side project” soon became the main focus.

Toro Y Moi started in 2001 as a bedroom project, but quickly grew into the live performance realm. The songs are born from a plethora of different genres, from freak-folk to R&B to French house.

Alan McGee recently tipped Toro Y Moi as “the new pop sound of 2010″ in his list of 15 acts destined for big things in the Guardian, enthusing: “Causers of This is a combative force between drone, R&B and hip-hop, mapping out a futuristic new pop sound”.

Чез Бундик — типичный хипстер из Южной Каролины: полгода назад закончил университет по специальности «графический дизайнер», зарабатывает фрилансом, все свободное время отдавая музицированию, ведет блог, состоящий из фотографий с многозначительными подпи­сями. Название Toro Y Moi ничего не означает; кроме Бундика, в группе музыкантов нет.

Вместе с однокурсником Эрнестом Грином (он же сам себе группа Washed Out) ­Бундик является небольшой звездой новоиспеченного жанра, известного под разнообразными сложносочиненными именами вроде глоу-фай, чиллвейв или гипнагогический поп. Если вкратце, имеется в виду застенчивый и ненавязчивый юношеский поп, как будто разархивированный с отцовского чердака, заедающий, сбивающийся, словно записанный на почти осыпавшуюся кас­сету. В некотором смысле Бундик с коллегами являются модными продолжателями деяний гениального подпольного чудака Ариэля Пинка.

Глоу-фай, как его ни назови, хорош в качестве умозрительной теоретической конструкции, но не всегда хорош в качестве собственно музыки — зачастую ничего, кроме загадочного мерцания, от песен не остается. Впрочем, у Бундика имеется неплохой мелодический та­лант, а в 2010-м он собирается выпустить сразу два альбома — по крайней мере обсуждать его точно будут.

While wholly generic, to the position of near-pastiche at times, the debut long-player from Toro Y Moi – aka South Carolina’s Chaz Bundick – is nevertheless engrossing and entertaining, lifting as it does from sources as exquisite as the squelch-and-fizz beatscapes of J Dilla and the blogosphere-borne chillwave sounds of summer 2009. If the likes of Memory Tapes and Washed Out have been mainstays on your stereo since the sun slipped behind the choking cloud of continuing winter, Causers of This is a certainty to brighten your own horizons – even if those outside retain their greyness.

Unlike, say, Memory Tapes though, Bundick doesn’t burn straight for a memorable hook, the pop elements of Causers of This trickling slowly from a frame that’s shaped primarily upon forms usually spied and assimilated by artists operating in more dance-savvy circles. Come the album’s midsection, echoes abound of not only Dilla (Fax Shadow, especially) but also more recent purveyors of glitched-and-grafted forward-thinking hip hop: Flying Lotus stands proud as the primary parallel to be drawn. Lissoms, meanwhile, could be a stray cut from Hudson Mohawke’s attention-grabbing EP of 2009, Polyfolk Dance, and alongside the shadowing of stateside influences Bundick does a decent impersonation, more than once, of Scotland’s aquacrunk scene.

If all this wonkiness sounds like a headache in the making, salvation is proffered in the shape of sun-drenched excursions into dream-pop territories: though Freak Love steps to a stuttering beat, the fat swathes of atmospheric keys and underwater echoes are soothing in the extreme, and You Hid is a luscious exercise in languid liquidity. Talamak goes as far as featuring something approaching a simple, sing-along chorus; likewise the sumptuous Low Shoulder, which fuses an 80s synth-pop number onto a raft of 16-bit effects straight out of Sonic 2. The closing title-track could almost be Alphabeat, if the Danes were atomised in Willy Wonka’s Television Room only to appear on screen in a decidedly scrambled fashion. Its abrupt end does rather end the album on a bum note, though.

Much like The Ruby Suns’ Fight Softly, Causers of This is a poorly timed release in terms of coincidence with suitable external conditions. But Bundick has experience aplenty of vitamin D deficiency given the hours he must’ve spent locked away working on this, and he’s emerged sunny side up. It’s worth following his lead, at least until spring breaks through.

Which approach you prefer will impact how much you get out of Causers of This. The album is geared more toward those who appreciate production, and in some ways is a departure from Bundick's earlier singles such as "109" and "Sad Sams". At times guitar-based, those songs were generally pretty punchy and utilized a fair amount of lo-fi tape hiss. Here, though, Bundick embraces a cleaner and mellower sound that's more indebted to hip-hop. He wears his inspirations proudly, and throughout there's a clear nod to producers like J Dilla and Flying Lotus. What he extracts from these sources, Bundick combines with his own vocals and other instrumentation to make warm, wobbly pop songs that, while not always as catchy as his contemporaries', are distinctive and appealing in their own right.

The album starts out strong with a string of tracks that showcase Bundick's range. First two songs "Blessa" and "Minors" exhibit his pop sensibilities, setting a wash of vocals over looped electro-funk instrumentals and crisp drum programming. Here Bundick strikes a nice balance between sticky vocal melodies and the undulating arrangements that feature through the rest of the record. On other tracks in the first half, he takes on genre experiments with similar success-- first jaunty piano soul on "Imprint After" and then sparkly disco with "Lissoms", the album's most propulsive moment. While these songs are all enjoyable, "Fax Shadow" serves as the best representation of Toro's potential. It's the most complex track here, and in its Dilla soul sampling and distorted beat pattern, Bundick shows production skill far beyond most of his peers.

Each of these songs work in a similar way. Instead of using crude production, he manipulates sounds to create texture. It's the way "Freak Love"'s drums fall off that enhances its mood, not that they sound blown-out or tinny. This craftsmanship carries him through most of the album, but begins to fade towards the end. Bundick doesn't run out of ideas at this point, but his balance of arrangement and song feels off. "You Hid" is wobbly but one-note, lacking punch, and the closing title track is too cluttered. If Causers of This stayed consistent through the end, it might be up there with the assured debuts of his peers; instead, it's just a few notches below.

Это редкий образец музыки из разряда лаунджа, которая не проходит бесследно мимо, а рождает желание еще разок окунуться в ее мягкие звуки, забывая все заботы и проблемы. Causers Of This — очень грамотно сделанный материал. В его основе — даунтемпо-бит, который местами ускоряется до сонного фанка, сопровождаемого теплыми синтезаторными звуками. И вся эта красота увенчана хрупким мужским вокалом.

This whole psychedelic/chillwave/ dream-pop genre is blowing up in a big way at the moment. Everywhere you turn there seems to be some new indie act producing impossibly lush and hazy records on their bedroom PC. Neon Indian may be the most recognised name, but there are several other acts waiting in the wings - Toro Y Moi is the latest to throw his hat into the ring with Causers of This. Based in South Carolina, the unfortunately named Chaz Bundick doesn’t seem like an obvious candidate for chillwave poster-boy. If anything, the name conjures images of good ‘ol boys drinking beer out the back of a pick-up. Of course, names (and appearances) can be deceiving and Causers of This is testament to that fact. Working under the Toro Y Moi moniker, young Chaz has crafted an album of impossibly balmy, electronic soundscapes. A world of fleeting, distorted vocals, old Moog synths and drifting melodies. The guy lists his influences as Daft Punk, Sonic Youth, J Dilla and Animal Collective - you can hear elements of all those acts on this debut.

In a nutshell, it’s seriously impressive. The sort of thing that works just as well with headphones and jazz cigarettes as it does floating by in the background of a busy cafe. If you’ve already been acquainted with Neon Indian this would be your next port of call.