[phlipcam video] Toro Y Moi @ Brighton Music Hall
    
    Much
 tongue-in-cheek ribbing has been flung about recently surrounding 
chillwave, mostly by way of those who spotted the glossed-over fad as 
being just that during its time in the RSS-powered sun. As someone who 
was riding the wave pretty hard around this time last year and totally 
enjoyed Neon Indian that one time I saw them, I'll keep the quips to a minimum. But let me just say, if we don't get a Washed Out full-length by the time summer rolls around, I'm gonna start getting aggy.
Even chillwave poster boy Chazwick Bundick, aka TORO Y MOI, is seemingly distancing himself from the sinking ship. Or was he never even on the ship to begin with? Jonathan Donaldson's feature from this past weeks issue
 hints toward the latter. A college student, without access to high-tech
 recording equipment, that happened to make a disc of hazy, bedroom 
R&B during a time when others were making hazy, bedroom produced 
music. Causers of This
 never really fit in stride with other benchmark chillwave releases 
anyway, featuring far more fully formed songs than anything being 
offered by those he was repeatedly getting lumped in with. And maybe why
 Underneath the Pine
 feels so removed from that first effort is simply that he's happened upon
 better recording equipment now that he's got a little bit of guap in 
his pocket.
Not much has changed since the last time I caught his live band, last May opening for Caribou.
 And I mean that in the best way possible. Back then, I was impressed 
with how full they sounded in comparison to the breezy atmospherics of Causers.
 He has since filled out his recorded output in compliance with his 
kickdown of a live set, giving him an hours worth of bouncy material to 
run through during his sold-out Brighton Music Hall gig on Saturday. 
Above is a phlipcam vid of "Still Sound" which is a pretty good 
indicator of how tight his four-piece ensemble was while maneuvering in 
front of that tie-dyed petri dish backdrop. If only they had a Hipstamatic app for Flip Cams.