[phlipcam video] Toro Y Moi @ Brighton Music Hall
Much
tongue-in-cheek ribbing has been flung about recently surrounding
chillwave, mostly by way of those who spotted the glossed-over fad as
being just that during its time in the RSS-powered sun. As someone who
was riding the wave pretty hard around this time last year and totally
enjoyed Neon Indian that one time I saw them, I'll keep the quips to a minimum. But let me just say, if we don't get a Washed Out full-length by the time summer rolls around, I'm gonna start getting aggy.
Even chillwave poster boy Chazwick Bundick, aka TORO Y MOI, is seemingly distancing himself from the sinking ship. Or was he never even on the ship to begin with? Jonathan Donaldson's feature from this past weeks issue
hints toward the latter. A college student, without access to high-tech
recording equipment, that happened to make a disc of hazy, bedroom
R&B during a time when others were making hazy, bedroom produced
music. Causers of This
never really fit in stride with other benchmark chillwave releases
anyway, featuring far more fully formed songs than anything being
offered by those he was repeatedly getting lumped in with. And maybe why
Underneath the Pine
feels so removed from that first effort is simply that he's happened upon
better recording equipment now that he's got a little bit of guap in
his pocket.
Not much has changed since the last time I caught his live band, last May opening for Caribou.
And I mean that in the best way possible. Back then, I was impressed
with how full they sounded in comparison to the breezy atmospherics of Causers.
He has since filled out his recorded output in compliance with his
kickdown of a live set, giving him an hours worth of bouncy material to
run through during his sold-out Brighton Music Hall gig on Saturday.
Above is a phlipcam vid of "Still Sound" which is a pretty good
indicator of how tight his four-piece ensemble was while maneuvering in
front of that tie-dyed petri dish backdrop. If only they had a Hipstamatic app for Flip Cams.