Toro Y Moi

For a moment, Toro Y Moi, the name of Chaz Bundick's pop experiment, was part of the burgeoning “chillwave” movement. Being friend to and remixer of fellow South Carolinian one-man band Washed Out and crafting a springy, far-from-austere electronic album like Causers Of This will do that to you. Always intent to stretch his sound in multiple, often contradictory directions, Bundick followed up Causers with affronts to any and all subgenre tags. “Leave Everywhere,” the single released last summer, is straight ahead singer-songwriter fare, while last fall's “Lina” 12-inch, released under the name Les Sins, is an artful, all-out house music work-out. This year's Underneath The Pine—the proper follow-up to Causers—is lighter on electronic wizardry but heavier on baroque song craft. It’s weirdly, awesomely funky, too.

Live performances are similarly exploratory: Early Toro Y Moi shows were solo affairs, with Bundick accompanied by only a laptop, sometimes a synth. He charmingly grooved across the stage. It was intimate—maybe a little too intimate, actually. As his profile rose, Bundick brought together a band to turn Causers' digitized indie pop into sprawling electronic-infused dance rock. The approach directly influenced the sound of Underneath The Pine, an album conceptualized with the full band in mind. It shows: The group interplay glistens on record as well as on-stage, changing Toro Y Moi from bedroom producer project to a confident, formidable space-funk crew. His chillwave moment is definitely over. —Brandon Soderberg