Toro Y Moi - Outer Peace: Review
Toro Y Moi
Chaz Bundick is the songwriter and multi-instrumentalist behind the moniker that has been pumping out chillwave and glo-fi infused projects for the better part of a decade. His breakthrough project 2010's Causers Of This made him a well known name in the world of beat driven indie music and his numerous projects and collaborations in the time since have helped cement him as a consistent artist but one with a noticeable ceiling. His last album 2017's Boo Boo was the most critically and commercially successful since that original breakthrough album and after he began exploring some interesting ideas in the vein of his previous work with Outer Peace's singles he set the stage for a solid effort that dives into some fresh ideas.
Review By Lav:
Toro Y Moi was a name that I always knew, I didn't hear him in 2010 when he first came to light in the indie scene and I spent the next 7 years knowing him only by name sake. Then by chance a friend reccomended the intro track to his 2017 album Boo Boo, the song Mirage, which is still a favorite of mine to this day. That inspired me to listen to and review Boo Boo, a solid but not amazing album, and then revisit his archive of decent to good chill-wave albums. There really isn't a masterpiece in the bunch but he has a stark consistency that left me excited to try out his new music even though I was confident it had a ceiling.
What we really have in Outer Peace is a background marvel. An album that has just enough catchy and looping chill wave vibes throughout it for you to remember nothing except that you enjoyed it. While some of its tracks hold up spectacularly upon closer inspection others find themselves crumbling completely.
The album introduces itself in a great way with the base heavy and groove driven Fading a great cut that sees Chaz drop some spectacularly catchy vocals interlaced with huge washing vocal samples and a myriad of percussive elements mixed throughout, the song introduces you to the vibe that the album will strive to achieve throughout in one of the songs that does the best job executing it. This is followed up by one of the albums two singles and its second track Ordinary Pleasure a more lowkey cut that rides on a bouncy back and forth drum beat spruced up with some blips of keyboard here and there, but the real highlight is Chaz's stellar vocal performance. The "maximize all the pleasure" refrain is among the most memorable moments the album has to offer.
The next few songs are where some of the cracks start to show in the project. The third song Laws of the Universe has a hyperspace instrumental that sounds about as front and center as runway music. Which is fine if the palette is being worked with effectively but neither the vocal performance or any of the bells and whistles mixed in to the tracks seemingly long 3 minutes do enough to redeem it. Not even a sharp LCD Soundsystem reference can save this song. The next song Miss Me which features guest vocals from ABRA who we heard from on Charli XCX's Pop 2 mixtape. It suffers from an opposite problem of just not having nearly enough going on or any reason to listen to it consciously, the instrumental falls short of its mystifying spaciousness, and ABRA does a not so good impression of a mid 90's Bjork combining for one of the most underwhelming songs on Outer Peace.
The next track New House isn't a solution to the formula but it is a little bit better executed. The instrumental does the spacey vibe better than the previous track and the sampled vocals that give the song its title are fittingly icy and distant. Unfortunately Chaz gives a below average vocal performance on the song that does a lot to take you out of the mood whenever he pops in, however rarely that may be. Thankfully the next song picks up some momentum. Baby Drive It Down is the perfect modern chillwave song, its pulsating beats threaten to take over the entire song but the sweet claps and distant keys combine with a sugary sweet vocal performance to make a song that is impossible to not love in the moment. It may not stand out in the scope of contemporary music but it is one you'll find yourself wanting to revisit.
Next up comes the albums lead single and our first taste of what its sound may be, the track Freelance. At nearly four minutes long it is a decent cut that definitely overstays its welcome. In an album that last just an even half hour Freelance is a song you've already heard and declared just decent about halfway through and is symptomatic of some bigger issues the album has. Who Am I is both the next track up and another ultra contemporary chillwave vibe slapped onto some menial vocals. But when the instrumentals are meant to take up so much of the spotlight they just need to be really good and Who Am I is yet another example of a track with good elements that ultimately comes together to not really do anything all that special.
Next up is Monte Carlo an effective bounce between Chaz delivering a trap like hook over a bass heavy beat that sounds like something you would catch Juice WRLD on and some very pretty vocals on the part of the featured artist WET. The track is a strange and unique detour and one of the albums most memorable moments. And the closing track 50-50 is a perfect summation of the album, a distant instrumental that coasts its way through a short runtime seemingly not trying very hard to stay fresh and ending the album on just another okay note.
Unfortunately after Outer Peace gets off to a fantastic start with its first two tracks the creativity comes slowly to a crawl as nothing on this project past the beginning feels urgent. Toro Y Moi has never been the model of consistency but this album is a particular offender of 15 minutes of ideas stretched into 30 minutes of music, as even for such a short project multiple songs feel like their twice as long as they should be and a handful of tracks are so sparse and empty without resolve that it makes you wonder what the point of them even being there is. After Boo Boo I was hoping Chaz would drop another quality record to add to the Toro Y Moi discography but with Outer Peace all we got was a few songs to add to the greatest hits album in years to come. 5/10
Review By Lav:
Toro Y Moi was a name that I always knew, I didn't hear him in 2010 when he first came to light in the indie scene and I spent the next 7 years knowing him only by name sake. Then by chance a friend reccomended the intro track to his 2017 album Boo Boo, the song Mirage, which is still a favorite of mine to this day. That inspired me to listen to and review Boo Boo, a solid but not amazing album, and then revisit his archive of decent to good chill-wave albums. There really isn't a masterpiece in the bunch but he has a stark consistency that left me excited to try out his new music even though I was confident it had a ceiling.
What we really have in Outer Peace is a background marvel. An album that has just enough catchy and looping chill wave vibes throughout it for you to remember nothing except that you enjoyed it. While some of its tracks hold up spectacularly upon closer inspection others find themselves crumbling completely.
The album introduces itself in a great way with the base heavy and groove driven Fading a great cut that sees Chaz drop some spectacularly catchy vocals interlaced with huge washing vocal samples and a myriad of percussive elements mixed throughout, the song introduces you to the vibe that the album will strive to achieve throughout in one of the songs that does the best job executing it. This is followed up by one of the albums two singles and its second track Ordinary Pleasure a more lowkey cut that rides on a bouncy back and forth drum beat spruced up with some blips of keyboard here and there, but the real highlight is Chaz's stellar vocal performance. The "maximize all the pleasure" refrain is among the most memorable moments the album has to offer.
The next few songs are where some of the cracks start to show in the project. The third song Laws of the Universe has a hyperspace instrumental that sounds about as front and center as runway music. Which is fine if the palette is being worked with effectively but neither the vocal performance or any of the bells and whistles mixed in to the tracks seemingly long 3 minutes do enough to redeem it. Not even a sharp LCD Soundsystem reference can save this song. The next song Miss Me which features guest vocals from ABRA who we heard from on Charli XCX's Pop 2 mixtape. It suffers from an opposite problem of just not having nearly enough going on or any reason to listen to it consciously, the instrumental falls short of its mystifying spaciousness, and ABRA does a not so good impression of a mid 90's Bjork combining for one of the most underwhelming songs on Outer Peace.
The next track New House isn't a solution to the formula but it is a little bit better executed. The instrumental does the spacey vibe better than the previous track and the sampled vocals that give the song its title are fittingly icy and distant. Unfortunately Chaz gives a below average vocal performance on the song that does a lot to take you out of the mood whenever he pops in, however rarely that may be. Thankfully the next song picks up some momentum. Baby Drive It Down is the perfect modern chillwave song, its pulsating beats threaten to take over the entire song but the sweet claps and distant keys combine with a sugary sweet vocal performance to make a song that is impossible to not love in the moment. It may not stand out in the scope of contemporary music but it is one you'll find yourself wanting to revisit.
Next up comes the albums lead single and our first taste of what its sound may be, the track Freelance. At nearly four minutes long it is a decent cut that definitely overstays its welcome. In an album that last just an even half hour Freelance is a song you've already heard and declared just decent about halfway through and is symptomatic of some bigger issues the album has. Who Am I is both the next track up and another ultra contemporary chillwave vibe slapped onto some menial vocals. But when the instrumentals are meant to take up so much of the spotlight they just need to be really good and Who Am I is yet another example of a track with good elements that ultimately comes together to not really do anything all that special.
Next up is Monte Carlo an effective bounce between Chaz delivering a trap like hook over a bass heavy beat that sounds like something you would catch Juice WRLD on and some very pretty vocals on the part of the featured artist WET. The track is a strange and unique detour and one of the albums most memorable moments. And the closing track 50-50 is a perfect summation of the album, a distant instrumental that coasts its way through a short runtime seemingly not trying very hard to stay fresh and ending the album on just another okay note.
Unfortunately after Outer Peace gets off to a fantastic start with its first two tracks the creativity comes slowly to a crawl as nothing on this project past the beginning feels urgent. Toro Y Moi has never been the model of consistency but this album is a particular offender of 15 minutes of ideas stretched into 30 minutes of music, as even for such a short project multiple songs feel like their twice as long as they should be and a handful of tracks are so sparse and empty without resolve that it makes you wonder what the point of them even being there is. After Boo Boo I was hoping Chaz would drop another quality record to add to the Toro Y Moi discography but with Outer Peace all we got was a few songs to add to the greatest hits album in years to come. 5/10
