Chaz Bear aka Toro y Moi will make his debut on Dead Oceans next April with the release of his new album MAHAL. Coming with this exciting announcement, he has also shared two new singles and videos: the vibey and funky “Postman” as well as “Magazine,” which features Salami Rose Joe Louis on vocals. Watch and pre-order the album below.

It’s not everyday we’re delivered standout music by way of Dropbox, but Chaz Bear – aka Toro Y Moi – has never been an “everyday” sort of artist. While there are plenty of highlight tracks on his Soul Trash mixtape, all with titles that sound like an error code, “b_elijah_therapy_v2” rises to the top as one of Chaz’s most exciting forays into full-fledged hip-hop to date.

Off-kilter 808’s kick off the track, quickly giving way to a sparkly hook marked by some uncharacteristically audacious lyrics: “Man this vision got me startin’ up a biz / Why you think I got a space this big / Now I come off arrogant /Said too much like you my therapist”. This more or less marks the end of Chaz’s vocal work on the track, with the rest of the responsibility falling on newcomer Elijah Kessler, a singer and rapper from Santa Monica. Despite an unfamiliar name, it’s hard to imagine a better fit for the crunchy, synth-soaked beat, as Elijah skips across the track with veteran agility while keeping things melodic and sleek.

Long-time fans and Toro Y Moi virgins alike would be remiss not to dive into the sounds and sights (there’s a short film) of Soul Trash. Catch a vibe – God knows Chaz makes it easy.

“b_elijah_therapy_v2” is now featured on our Best Tracks of 2019 playlist.

A few months ago, Blood Orange shared his mixtape Angel’s Pulse, that he described as “somewhat of an epilogue” to his last album Negro Swan. Following up on the “Benzo” visuals, he has now unveiled a clip for “Dark & Handsome,” a highlight off the mixtape that we featured in our Best Tracks of 2019. The self-directed and edited visuals also include an appearance from Toro y Moi, who is also present on the track. Watch below.

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In his sixth album as Toro y Moi, Chaz Bear caters to his funkiest self while refusing to ignore the trends of today. Bear’s full veering into funk can hardly be a surprise for anyone who has followed his career, as even his chillwave phase had noticeable influences from 70s funk. However, he had never been this consistent in his explorations of funk, and arguably never this successful either. Though not lacking in melody, Outer Peace is an album built mostly on rhythm. Almost every song has a dancefloor-ready bassline, from the bouncy disco of “Ordinary Pleasure” to the techno and bubblegum pop-influenced “Who Am I”.

Ironically enough for an artist whose music played an enormous influence on the pop scene not so long ago, what ultimately lets Outer Peace down is Bear’s attempt to follow contemporary trends. “Miss Me”, his collaboration with Abra, is a derivative neo-R&B song that goes on for three minutes without anything remotely interesting or appealing happening. The same thing can be said about “Monte Carlo”, where, as if trying to prove me right, he brought in the remarkably asinine Brooklyn duo Wet. It’s not like Bear is completely out of his territory, as “Miss Me” is immediately followed by a much more exciting attempt at making a similar style of music in “New House”, where his autotuned voice sits atop a trap beat and a background vocal line painfully relatable for pretty much every human being aged 20-40: “I want a brand new house / Something I cannot buy, something I can’t afford.”

If it’s something that hasn’t changed here it’s Bear’s lyrical prowess. The example above is only one of the few pieces of evidence of him remaining as one of the wittiest pop lyricists of his generation. Bear has grown into the kind of songwriter that can make an entire hook out of a single line that has been written beforehand. In “Who Am I”, arguably the danciest track in his danciest album, he puts on his purist mask and wonders: “Who cares about the party? / I came to see the band play.” In “Laws of the Universe”, he references LCD Soundystem’s “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House” and changes the lyric to “James Murphy is spinning at my house (I met him at Coachella)” without sounding gimmicky or try-hard, an impressive feat given how dumb the lyric looks on paper.

At the core of the album sits “Freelance”, which is quite possibly among Bear’s best work ever. Basically a funk re-imagining of Animal Collective’s “Leaf House”, the song is a bass-laden beast where absolutely everything – everything – is catchy, from the initial kick drum to Bear’s peculiar use of autotune in the chorus. In a song that would already be killer as an instrumental, Bear’s vocals soon grow from unnecessary to indispensable. If Bear’s plan with this album was to give a funky touch to his sound while maintaining his trademark quirks, he hit jackpot with “Freelance”.

At its best, Outer Peace is a late-2010s version of a 70s funk album. Like the best Toro y Moi material, it sounds like the brainchild of a visionary alone in his room recording himself with a laptop – an image with which Bear is reluctant to part, as can be seen in the video for “Freelance”. Not that Outer Peace is the work of an amateur, though. The jaw-dropping quality of the production is one of the album’s biggest assets – like most Toro y Moi albums, it sounds like someone is massaging your ears. It’s very clearly the sound of someone knowing what he’s doing, even if he’s getting mixed results. Outer Peace shows two hypothetical directions that Toro y Moi might be taking in the future – one exciting and not alien to his fans, the other a lesser version of a contemporary trend that has already started feeling old. Hopefully the next time he’ll stick to what works.

Columbia-born artist Chaz Bear aka Toro Y Moi has shared a second track from his upcoming new album, the follow up to his 2017’s project Boo Boo. Just like the previous single “Freelance,” his new song “Ordinary Pleasure” is a playful albeit bittersweet banger which draws from funk and chillwave soundscapes. Tune in below.

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Oakland-based artist Astronauts, etc. – real name Anthony Ferraro – is preparing the release of his new album “Living In Symbol.” Following up on first single “The Border,” here’s a new dreamy offering named “The Room.” Co-produced with Chaz Bear of Toro Y Moi, for who he was playing keyboards on tour, the luxuriant track deals with serious issues like addiction and depression. In his own words, he explained:

[su_quote]Addiction, depression, unhealthy love, bad ideology. They’re all rooms that can start to feel like home, with its safety and familiarity, if you spend enough time in them. I wrote this song while watching my good friend try and fail to leave such a room. I hoped to represent both sides in the song – the comfort, even euphoria, of being in the room, and the dread of realizing you may never leave. There are nice rooms, too, but this song isn’t about those.[/su_quote]

On CarPark Records’ website, Toro y Moi (AKA Chaz Bundick, AKA Chaz Bear after recently changing his name) explains that the idea of space within music played heavily into the philosophy of ‘Boo Boo’, and cites artists like Daft Punk, Frank Ocean and Travis Scott as creative influences. ‘I recognized that the common thread between these artists was their attention to a feeling of space’, he writes, ‘or lack thereof’.

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Surely enough, ‘spacious’ is an ideal word to describe this project. Beginning with ‘Mirage’, the opening track, we start sinking slowly into a large, cushy mattress of analog synths, with funky drum patterns acting as the box spring providing support. And, while the palette here is purposely limited, the amount of feeling Chaz is able to evoke while remaining within a narrow range of instruments and styles is impressive – from the off-kilter bounciness of ‘Inside My Head’ to the mournful slow-dance anthem that is ‘You and I’.

Toro Y Moi’s ‘Boo Boo’ sounds like the soundtrack to a 1980’s prom heard through the hazy filter of a present-day dream.

The track list here makes for a smooth ride from start to finish, with very few bumps in between. In that sense, it’s hard to point out any real low points, but true high points are a bit hard to come by as well. ‘You and I’, with its ultra-dreaminess and pop undertones, is certainly a stand out, as is ‘Windows’; but, ultimately, ‘Boo Boo’ is a bit lacking in terms of climax. However, even at its worst, the album is still rife with great mood music, and has the potential to be much more than that depending on the listener and the setting.

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On ‘Girl Like You’, Toro Y Moi sings the line, ‘I’ll take you where you wanna be tonight’. Taken out of the context of a ballad, this promise becomes an apt description of the immersive powers that the music of “Boo Boo” possesses. Because, despite the occasional long-windedness you may encounter on a listen through, ‘Boo Boo’ is an album that is overwhelmingly deft in creating mood, atmosphere and, of course, space.