Photos by Mike Frash, Marc Fong & Sam Heller // Written by Mike Frash //
Toro y Moi with Sinkane //
The Independent – San Francisco
March 1st-2nd, 2013 //
Toro y Moi headlined two nights of Noise Pop at The Independent last Friday and Saturday, closing a spectacular week of live music at the place where Noise Pop started 21 years ago. Chaz Bundick, who goes by Toro y Moi as his multilingual stage name, proved that he can captivate a room while barely budging from his statuesque position at his command central, surrounded by keyboard, synthesizer & other sound modulation technology.
Chazwick Bundick, one of the leading early influences behind the “chillwave” movement, played his new material from Anything in Return to perfection, proving that Toro y Moi has progressed further into dance territory. “Rose Quartz” opened the night, setting the crowd off into a show full of swaying, psychedelic music moments. The jam of the show Saturday night was “So Many Details.” The live-performance outro to this song is an impressive sonic blast of building, repetitious beeps and the looping lyrics “You send my life, into somewhere I can’t describe … so many details.” Moments like this showcase Toro y Moi’s dexterity performing live, as Bundick’s seemingly uses his Jedi mind-powers to subliminally convince a 450-pax crowd to jump on his wave, sway-dance a bit and chill the fuck out.
It must have been a banner weekend for Bundick, as he headlined Noise Pop and joined his buddy Ernest Greene (aka Washed Out) at 1015 Folsom on Friday night for a DJ performance. The two know each other from school days at the University of South Carolina, where they influenced one another and basically established this much ballyhooed chillwave music subgenre. But at least one thing is clear after hearing Toro y Moi perform live this past weekend: Chaz Bundick has no interest in being constrained within the chillwave box.
[…] has changed for Chaz Bundick and his project Toro y Moi since playing The Independent two years ago. Keyboardist Anthony Ferraro was added to the touring band, Toro y Moi then graduated to performing […]