Causers Of This is a lot like a bullet train (go with me on this). If you’re on board with it, it’s a beautiful and impressive experience. But if you let it, it will pass you in a second, leaving behind a trail just impressive enough to make you chase after for another chance (if that makes sense).
Toro Y Moi is the bedroom project of South Carolina’s Chazwick Bundick. He hasn’t been making music under his Spanish/French moniker for very long, which makes his debut full-length that much more impressive. A good friend of artist Washed Out (aka Ernest Greene), Toro Y Moi is quickly pigeon-holed with him in the trendy and niche “chillwave” movement alongside Memory Tapes and Neon Indian. But comparatively, his music sounds more like a weird space version of jazz or a more interesting form of ambient electronica. Genres!!
Basically, Toro Y Moi has created an easy-going, yet complicated world full of loops, samples and bouncy synth that backs up lazy, seemingly nonsensical lyrics. Songs don’t follow traditional structures and are individually more like wandering journeys through Bundick’s artistic mind. His sound is anything but empty, but it’s also anything but in your face.
Singles might seem hard to pick out of an album that works wonderfully as a whole, but both “Blessa” and “Talamak” are so well-crafted that they can’t be downplayed. Although they’re at opposite ends of the track list, the more upbeat tribal-infused “Blessa” seems to slowly evolve into the relaxed, yet heavy, “Talamak.” Everything in between and following is just the cake on which the two songs can exist so beautifully.
It’s hard to pin down Causers Of This as anything other than a beautifully chilled-out album by a very talented new electronic and experimental artist. To try and insert any kind of great intention or deeper meaning is missing the point entirely. It’s simply great music to be enjoyed. I couldn’t ask for anything more.
Toro Y Moi – “Blessa” [MP3]
Toro Y Moi – “Talamak” [MP3]
he’s pretty enjoyable live too, better than i expected!
“Low Shoulder” is fantastic — thanks for sharing!
http://blog.jeffreygeoffrey.com/