Toro Y Moi - Causers of This
Alright, I decided to stay in Hamilton for few days for first week of Spring Break. Let’s see if I can write 5 solid reviews in 5 days.
When I received this CD from Ian, I was pretty skeptical: a solo project from a guy who grew up in South Carolina that was in an unknown band. The promo information for this cd described him as “multi-instrumentalist that enjoys a lot of music.” Well, that doesn’t help much. After I put in the CD, I was instantly blown away. Beginning with swoops and whaps, the blissed-out heavily-reverbed voice hazily sings “come home summer” on Blessa. This is only the first 20 seconds.
Now a lot of critics often drag this album with Washed Out, Memory Tapes, and Neon Indian (the ‘chill-wave’ fad). This album is something way different. As many artists try to find balance between electronica, ambience, and popiness, Toro Y Moi just mashes it up all together into a dough, finds a bunch of good cookie cutters (shapes that celebrates all holidays, of course!), and bakes a box of sweet, beautiful cookies. (I’m really hungry right now. Sorry for the stupid analogy.) What Toro Y Moi does so well in this album is that he makes a bright blur that is not too transparent or unrecognizable between electronica and ambience. It’s ghostly, lo-fi, hazy, blissful, and most of all, fun.
This album does not get pretentious about being ‘chill’, but tries to suck much fun out of it as possible, (while being ‘terminally chill’.) This is like if Daft Punk met Panda Bear, if J Dilla met Cut Copy, if My Bloody Valentine met Klaxons, and so on and so forth. The highlights of this album are “Blessa”, “Talamak”, “Low Shoulder”, and “Causers of This”, but really this album flows together literally. The songs transition with low fuzzes and droning bass drums, making this album an epic lo-fi short symphony.
-Taewook Lucas Kang. Ass. Music Director (THE BLOCK! 5-8PM Friday)
