FEATURED ARTIST OF THE MONTH

The pop-music world first encountered the atmospheric-electro creations of Chaz Bundick (aka Toro Y Moi) in late 2009, when "Blessa," a song that sounded like a summer daydream, surfaced on the Internet. It presented a kind of youthful sun-bleached pop music, but with a speculative edge. This wasn't an industry machine-generated twenty-something singing in falsetto about girls and heartbreak—this was a mysterious kid who seemed to have listened to his Michael Jackson with Brian Eno on the side. A sensitive kid, albeit an experimental one.

Just after the release of his predominately electronic debut album, CAUSERS OF THIS, Chaz decided to release an acoustic companion album, UNDERNEATH THE PINE. PINE is delicately '80s-inspired, but with more traditional instrumentation, indy-rock dabbling, and careful lyricism.

Chaz Bundick grew up in Columbia, South Carolina, the child of a Filipino mother and African-American father. He played in a punk band, and developed the alias Toro Y Moi as a teenager. He studied graphic design at University of South Carolina and worked at developing his music career. When the power of web-based music media like Pitchfork established itself as an authority, Chaz took to the computer to promote his music. And in so doing, he inadvertently joined a genre of laptop-rockers bloggers like Carles of Hipster Runoff called, variously, "post-bloghause," "GazeWave," and even "conceptro" before settling on "chillwave." Carles sarcastically suggested that "It seems easiest to have a chill project, that is somewhat 'conceptual' but also demonstrates that [your] band has 'pop sensibilities' or something"—thus capturing "chillwave" in a nutshell.

With the release of UNDERNEATH THE PINE just weeks away, Chaz recently spoke to THE OA about his musical influences, his relationship to the South, and what it's like to have an Internet-launched career. 

THE OXFORD AMERICAN: I'm told you decided to release a companion album to CAUSERS OF THIS because you are a prolific songwriter and you wrote so many songs that you felt didn't really fit on CAUSERS.

CB: It was like I was always working on electronic songs and non-electronic songs and I talked to Carpark [his label] about what I was going to do and they seemed to be okay with me doing that. So, it's something I'm sort of used to doing—two different styles of music. But doing it in that short amount of time was really hard, because I pretty much had to do it at separate times—not exactly at the same time. Before I got signed, I was just jumping back and forth, doing an electronic song and then doing an acoustic song, but because of touring, I had to do it all organic and had to go back to electronic stuff.

THE OA: Songs like "New Beat" and "Still Sound" are still pretty dancey, and I was just wondering how do you decide when you write a song that's pretty dancey, how did you decide to make it traditional instrument track as opposed to an electronic track?

CB: That was about the hardest thing, to figure out what was kind of instrumentation it would be. Because a lot of songs that are dancey aren't disco, and usually I felt like making disco would probably be the best solution, and I wanted to keep the danciness and funkiness.

Hear This! "Still Sound" by Toro Y Moi

THE OA: I definitely think you do. "New Beat" sounds like, to me, OFF THE WALL–era Michael Jackson.

CB: Yeah, that's exactly what I was trying to go for.

THE OA: A lot of what I loved about CAUSERS and a lot of what I like about the music that you make in general is that it feels very informed by '90s pop and '90s Top 40 r&b. Do you have any favorite singles or bands from the '90s that influence you?

CB: Yeah, it's not just the hip hop and r&b from the '90s. It's all types of '90s bands. I think that Weezer had a big influence on me, and I always like their melody. When it comes to production and stuff, I think it's more like The Gap Band and Ozone and George Benson, and all of that '80s and '90s funk.

THE OA: Do you listen to a lot of current pop music or Top 40 radio? Which do you like?

CB: Yeah, I like a lot of hip hop and r&b now: Gucci Mane, Lil Wayne, Young Jeezy, and Drake.

THE OA: You grew up in Columbia, South Carolina. It seems like a kind of interesting place for somebody to be from. Do you identify as a Southern musician?

CB: I think so. I think a lot of Southern aspects come out in my personality and my music. I'm just really connected by friends and family. I'm always thinking that everybody knows everybody, and everybody hears everything, just because in small towns, it's true. You know if you just tell one person, then the word gets out.

It's really crazy that in these larger cities with huge scenes nobody is really connected to each other.

THE OA: South Carolina has this connotation of old white money and seersucker suits. What was it like growing up there as a biracial kid?

CB: I never really experienced any racism. Columbia is the most liberal part of the entire state. I've always had an okay time being biracial in South Carolina. It's never really occurred to me, until after high school, that South Carolina was the kind of state that didn't have the best reputation in politics. It's just funny, because we get the crappiest press, the most ridiculous stuff, like our governor running away.

THE OA: I read that you were considerably influenced by soundtracks for this album, like the work of Ennio Morricone. What else were you influenced by on this album?

CB: I was really listening to a lot of jazz. Like Lonnie Liston Smith. Just a lot of jazz and funk. I was into a band called Mandré—they're really spacey. Also Sun Ra. I think what I liked the most about Sun Ra was his use of effects, and the way he was sort of haphazard, but every once in a while it totally worked, but sounded so scattered.

And the soundtracks of Piero Umiliani. He really knew how to orchestrate his songs.

THE OA: Your videos seem to be getting more avant-garde. The video for "Low Shoulder" was almost like Kenneth Anger or Warhol. Do you come up with the ideas, or do the filmmakers come to you?

CB: For "Low Shoulder," I was thinking it would be more interesting to approach darker stuff, since the song is so upbeat. I don't know, it just brought a weird juxtaposition, to have that video be dark, and I let them take that idea and run with it.

THE OA: During last year's grueling tour schedule, were there any American cities where the reception was so awful you thought, "I'm never coming here again"?

CB: No, I just wanted to take in the tour as best as I could. It didn't bother me that sometimes the shows weren't well attended in certain cities; I just liked traveling. The shows that were least attended were probably when we were out in the middle of the desert. Also, the entire time I was touring, I was opening. I know Salt Lake City wasn't well attended—it wasn't a bad show; it was a really good show. But that's okay. There's no town that I wouldn't go back to.  

THE OA: Were there any cities in the South that really surprised you?

CB: Lafayette, Louisiana. That show was really good. You know, it's a small town, too, but it was surprising how much those kids were into it. I think the Internet helps.

THE OA: You were basically an Internet-launched artist, you and contemporaries like Washed Out (Ernest Greene, of Georgia), and Neon Indian (Alan Palomo, of Texas) were among the first generation to experience that. Will this trend continue in the twenty-first century?

CB: Yeah, I felt like that's what was happening, that's why I started releasing mp3s. For a while, I was sending out demos and press packages. And I wasn't really hearing anything back. I even sent one to Carpark. But it's hard to see if you have any potential just from a press package. I think the Internet is a much better way for labels to see how a band forms, and how the response is. It also incorporates a visual thing, I think. That's definitely where the music industry is going.

THE OA: You're considered a co-founder of this new subgenre, "chillwave." That must be gratifying, to have helped invent a genre. How do you feel about that term?

CB: It's cool, and it doesn't really bother me. The only thing that I find negative about it is that the reviewer actually meant it as a joke, and then it caught on. I think if some people joke about it, and it catches on, you've got to just go with it.

THE OA: I think part of the reason is because critics struggle with how to define your music. It's like experimental indy-pop but with a lot of mainstream-pop influence. How would you describe it?

CB: Well, for CAUSERS, I was going for a shoe-gazey kind of hip-hop. I think that for me, though, and for Ernest [Greene, of Washed Out] I would say psychedelic pop.

THE OA: I've heard that you are pretty autobiographical in your lyrics. Can I ask who "Elise" is?

CB: Oh, yeah! That song is about a dream I had. The girl was Elise. I dreamed about a plane crash; it was like the most vivid dream I've ever had. It scared the hell out of me. I had this dream the day before I had to fly. It's about the dream, and it talks about my perspective, my fear of flying. She was the girl in the dream.

THE OA: Do you think it was a mistake to announce that you were going to make a companion album shortly after you came out with one?

CB: I just find that I work really well under pressure. If I know I don't have time, I procrastinate less.

THE OA: What's your favorite thing about making music?

CB: Just being able to hear what's in my head and then getting it. If you know exactly what you want, and you know how to do it, just creating and making something tangible.

THE OA: Is there anything particularly frustrating about making music, or performing in general?

CB: Well, when I did CAUSERS, the hardest part of performing was figuring out how to do the album live. I wasn't really thinking about a live band or a live setting when I made it.

Another thing is just being categorized in this genre, and people are like, "What's the next thing going to be?" It's got to be crazy or something. It's not that much pressure, but I try not to think about it, at the same time that I'm making new stuff. It's like the hardest thing is just trying to figure out how to do more.

THE OA: Do you have any favorite sounds?

CB: I do! I like the sound of walking on stones, like a parking lot full of gravel. When cars are parking on rocks, that's like my favorite sound. I like it when pugs snore.

Hear This! "New Beat" by Toro Y Moi