Harbours is a dude from Mebourne who makes music. Judging by his debut “Cashew”, Harbours is a dude who makes really good music. ”Cashew” definitely comes from a Toro y Moi inspired brand of electronic-pop with plenty of bright synths and woozy vocals. While chillwave has been a blogosphere joke ever since 2009, “Cashew” reminds me of the promise I first heard when I listened to “Blessa”. It’s just music done right.
-PK
In an interview with Chaz Bundick of Toro y Moi, Bundick discusses that he has a distaste for how being able to see the soundcloud waveform can take away from a song. Specifically, Chaz talks about always wanting to skip to what is clearly the loud exciting part of the song. If Chaz were to listen to Shelf Nunny’s newest jam “Wave of Phases” he may end up listening to about one minute of it. With the help of Holm, Shelf Nunny constructs a psychedelic grower that ambles along at it’s own pretty pace until exploding into shoegazy bliss at the end. If I had skipped to the loud/exciting part, the track wouldn’t have had the same effect. The key is patience here. It pays off.
-PK
When Terence managed to stumble upon the music of Jean Sebastien Audet (seriously how’d you find that? you’re my hero, Terence) I was most intrigued by the lo-fi rap project Zouk Fuck. Although my first introduction to Zouk Fuck was an incredibly unique and distinctive track, I wasn’t sure how Audet would continue to grow and evolve the project. Not surprisingly, his newest track (and collection of singles so far) demonstrate that Audet handles Zouk Fuck with the same kind of effortless, oddball genius that makes his other projects so great. ”Cheech Chong” finds Audet rapping with no effects or pitch-shifting putting the focus on his interesting and wit heavy flows over a beat sampling Toro y Moi’s “You Hid”. Have I included enough links in this post?
-PK
On January 22nd Toro y Moi will be releasing his third full-length album Anything in Return and he decided to give the first single from that album, “So Many Details”, a self-remix. The remix to “So Many Details” ups the dance and electronic aspects of the song with a faster tempo and a larger emphasis on synths. Hodgy Beats even makes an appearance during the later half of the track for a quick and solid verse and the OF rapper sounds right at home over the odd synths from the track. The So Many Details 7″ drops November 23rd.
-PK
Whether or not you bought into the whole chill-wave craze of 2009, it’s hard for anyone to deny how producer Toro y Moi has been able to keep his sound growing and maturing past blog-fueled buzz terms. Last year’s Underneath the Pine had Toro y Moi embracing a live instrumentation based disco vibe while his more recent Freaking Out EP found a happy medium between chill-wave and dance music. His latest single, ‘So Many Details’, shows off that Toro y Moi has only continued to develop as a producer since his past releases continuing his Freaking Out synthesis of instrumentally rich, dance-pop. Despite all the layers of instrumentation and details, ‘So Many Details’ never feels overwhelming and manages to feel clean and incredibly well produced. Anything in Return drops January 22nd.
-PK
Aside from his title as one of the best chill-wavers out there, Chaz Bundick of Toro y Moi is a great dance music producer, something that he showed off pretty well with the instrumentals on Freaking Out. Les Sins is Chaz’s side project where he experiments with dance music and a song like ‘Fetch’ proves that he’s good enough to make Les Sins a fully fleshed out effort. ’Fetch’ throws out a collage of sounds and samples that cover most of the popular electronic trends from the past few years (bro-step sadly not included) to make an entirely distinctive listen. Although the song jumps around with lots of sounds, the groove stays consistent which makes it danceable as well. ’Fetch’ is the a-side to a 7″ Les Sins is putting out on Jiaolong which should drop in a “weekish”.
-PK
The last time we heard the musical stylings of Toro Y Moi and Tyler, The Creator meet was on Toro’s “French” Remix which never really grew on me. Now the two are back with an original track that has grabbed me right away. Toro Y Moi provides a high energy beat with synth stabs that reminds me of Stop Making Sense-era talking heads and Tyler sounds right at home rapping over it laying down a couple of verses that remind me of his James Pants-produced Radical B-Side “Let’s Dance”. This is the most enthusiastic I have been about a new Tyler track since last spring even though this track isn’t even finished, so I really hope to hear these two work together more in the future.
-TC
