Toro Y Moi :: "Still Sound"

Electro-pop never sounded so distant and so hazy as on last year's Toro Y Moi single, "Blessa." The brain-child of multi-instrumentalist Chaz Bundick, Toro Y Moi promised to release two LPs in 2010, one digital and one with a live band. The second LP, Underneath The Pine didn't fit into Carpark's end of the year schedule and is now set for early 2011 release. First single, "Still Sound" is a sultry romp, sounding a bit like a male-fronted Twin Sister. Bundick is at his finest in a reverb-heavy chorus, vocals echoing and bouncing off the walls as he spins a falsetto fabric in the middle of it all.

Listen :: Toro Y Moi - "Still Sound"

Toro Y Moi :: "Blessa"

Eight years ago I was carrying a mix CD that actually contained the song "Raining In Baltimore" by the Counting Crows. Tonight, it actually is raining in Baltimore, 50 miles to the north, and I couldn't careless about Adam Duritz. Even in the damp rain of the eastern seaboard, Toro Y Moi's "Blessa" stumbles sea-sick, warm and colorful from its digital housing. In the spirit of Air France and the new Beach House, this is lo-fi, shimmering, keyboard pop. But this has a different rhythm. It breathes, heaving up and down until there isn't any air left. Loosely, the song is about being blessed. Less connected, this is about a paragraph with a topic sentence that doesn't quite work, about sunshine in the dead of fall, about giving thanks before Thanksgiving. Sometimes, you can look back and laugh and sometimes songs that are about staying warm work the whole year round.

Listen :: Toro Y Moi - "Blessa"