Though Toro y Moi surfaced as a part of the slo-mo synth-pop motion lumped collectively as chillwave, the challenge’s sole member has at all times been an aspirational avatar for indie rock’s huddled lots. South Carolina’s Chaz Bundick, who later modified his final title to Bear and relocated to the Bay Space, has sung with equal detachment about bullshit jobs, breakup intercourse, and assembly James Murphy (“at Coachella,” he deadpans). However greater than the often-fragmentary lyrics, what feels most consultant of no matter stays of the indie zeitgeist is Bear’s unshowy eclecticism: He can bear in mind when he first purchased Radiohead’s OK Pc, however he’s additionally a home producer and heavyweight hip-hop collaborator. In a quiet victory for slacker SoulSeek jockeys in every single place, his work for EDM juggernaut Flume scored Bear a Grammy nomination. However it seems like he’s on the job nonstop—“All the things is time administration,” he advised an interviewer—and he has sufficient existential nervousness in regards to the level of all of it {that a} 2015 album was titled What For?.
Mahal, Toro y Moi’s seventh studio album and first for indie stalwart Useless Oceans, posits convincingly that what Bear does can also be speculated to be—as he advised the identical interviewer—effectively, “enjoyable.” The title, a Tagalog phrase that may imply “love” but in addition “costly,” is seemingly an intentional response to the query posed by What For?. Bear, whose father is Black and mom is Filipina, additional gestures to his maternal heritage with a canopy picture that reveals him perched in a decked-out jeepney—a colourful minibus that has for many years been the predominant type of public transportation within the Philippines. From a gap engine rev, the car is a spirit information throughout the album, a unfastened and vigorous psych-funk melange that transports him by types and time intervals with ad-hoc gaudiness and unassuming joie de vivre. It’s an album stuffed with jubilant funk-star yawps, goofier and extra open than his earlier full-lengths, with an uncharacteristic quantity of visitors. As an alternative of What For?, Mahal appears to ask, “Why not?”
Mahal is as fastidiously layered as the remainder of Toro y Moi’s style-shifting discography, however Bear leaves the perimeters tough, connecting the tracks with radio tuning noises and relishing in unvarnished instrumental expression. Wordless opener “The Medium” has a pleasantly saggy glam-rock stomp, smoothed out by Bear’s psych-soul keys, nevertheless it actually takes off because of a gnarly lead guitar half by Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s Ruban Nielson. “Millennium” is extra disco-splashed, with Bear singing about champagne and celebration, however the payoff is a splendidly wobbly synth solo by fellow chillwave lifer Neon Indian’s Alan Palomo. When the tempos sluggish, the taking part in evokes a muggy summer season environment, just like the sweltering blues-guitar frug on “Mississippi”—one among a number of Mahal tracks carried out fully by Bear. However the album additionally has loads of selection: Saxophone and flute waft over the woozy space-lounge ballad “Goes by So Quick.”
