Source: Toro y Moi
By Maria Perry (Staff Writer)
Toro y Moi, an American recording artist and producer, has released his third album, Anything in Return which has so far received moderately good reviews.
The album has received a 7.9 rating, according to Ian Cohen, a music critic who writes for Pitchfork.com, a popular music review website.
Although the music he makes is diverse, he is often associated with the chillwave movement since the Summer of 2010.
Chillwave is the genre of music that is characterized by the heavy use of effects processing, synthesizers, looping, and sampling, along with heavily filtered vocals that have simple melodic lines.
The album contains 13 tracks of electric music that is slow-moving and intriguing. While the music is in fact electric, it isn’t the standard techno we are used to hearing from similar artists.
Songs like, “Cake” are easier to dance to because it has an upbeat tempo. Other songs like “Harm in Change,” have a chaotic tempo which makes it harder to dance to.
Toro y Moi’s music in this album is the kind of music you would come home and relax to because it is tranquil and calm.
Instead of the physical aspects of love and relationships that artists of today seem to focus on, Moi tends to be more cerebral in his music, as his emotions and feelings take center stage.
His music tends to have a calming effect, allowing the listener to escape from their possibly hectic lives and have a moment of ease.
Some reviews have stated, “Anything in Return never feels exclusionary, so the extroversion of the music and the increasingly tony production ensures that any mention of Toro Y Moi as a ‘bedroom’ act has to relate to the lyrical concerns only.”
Most of the love-based themes in the lyrics are simple but contain meaning that illustrates a theme about life or love.
The lyrics sang about living life and forming significant bonds with people, even though it might be for a moment or life-long friendships.
Most listeners associate electric with dance clubs and parties. However, Toro y Moi makes electric music that is more mellow than energetic.
“The light touch he applies to his melodies sounds assured rather than meek,” said Cohen via pitchfork.com.
The main confusion with his music is it doesn’t have a solid genre. The reason this may be is that when he writes he bases it more on feeling than rhythm.
Musicians also like to experiment with the the music they make. They tend to have a set of criteria set in mind for his music or he could have been experimenting with his music.
It is evident that he had a vision about how he wanted the music to come out or the effect that the lyrics would have on the listener.
While he deviates, he still retains some traits of other genres, which helps make it unique but doesn’t go over the heads of the people listening.
It is different but listeners can still understand and relate to the themes in his songs.
The album has a theme that creates an atmosphere of its own.
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