The stars are aligning for Toro y Moi

It's a reference, of course, to his new album Hole Erth, the eighth full-length studio recording under the banner of Toro y Moi, Bear's most adaptable sonic persona. This time around he's veering into alternative rock with an arty collage of spectacular collaborations with friends such as Don Toliver, Kevin Abstract and Death Cab for Cutie’s Benjamin Gibbard.

We’re still workshopping what to dub the season after that – maybe Erth winter? – but the joke offers a good parallel for what his latest album stands for. As we have seen with the Brat phenomenon, music and pop culture have wormed their way into how we understand and talk about almost everything, and Hole Erth dives deeply into similar themes. It's an album hyper critical of stardom as it traces an unnamed character flailing through the music industry. “It’s a bird's eye view of this journey,” explains Bear. “You have to fight the dragon, save the princess. There’s a through line of this person seeing all these different corners of success and what it comes with. You have to dodge shady people, shady situations – it’s about how they try to hold onto themselves through all these interesting pit stops.”

As much as we use pop culture to define our times, pop culture is also defining us. “The entertainment industry is a really interesting one,” says Bear. “It can really build up cities like Austin. Or take Hollywood, for example, that was an entire city built for entertainment.” Recent single "Hollywood” may suggest as much, but Bear assures me he isn’t completely anti-LA. “People ask me if I hate LA, but I don’t!” he says, laughing. “The song is more about holding onto yourself when you go there to work. LA will make you – or enable you – to lose yourself and lose sight of what you want.” I ask if Bear has managed to slay the Hollywood dragon and save the princess during his 14 years in the music industry. “That’s the thing!” he laments, “I don’t know if you can.”

Hole Erth is full of similarly complicated feelings, particularly the Don Toliver-featuring “Madonna” in which the two men try to unpack the duality of the human and the celebrity. “There’s this really interesting narrative happening that even I can’t pin down,” he says. “We’re both singing from different perspectives; there’s some synergy happening. I’m talking about my thing, Don’s talking about his thing – it just sums up Americana.”

Though polarising at times, the album still brims with connections. The stars that circle the record cover fall into the tracklist, aligning and shining through to final track “Starlink”. “They represent the American flag, the Hollywood stars, but also outer space and galaxies,” Bear explains. He’s been busy slapping his own warped Hole Erth flag on everything – even dog poo bags. “I’m sending that out as merch for sure,” he says, laughing. “You gotta clean up the dog shit. Don’t just leave that shit there.”

Hole Erth calls for a more conscious way of living, not only considering our relationship to culture but also to our planetary home. Recently, Bear organised a Bay Area beach clean-up followed by a Hole Erth listening party, in partnership with the Usal community, which focuses on sustainability, wellness and all things outdoors. He’s keen to explore how he can use his platform productively, and how music can be a powerful tool in community building.

Considering Hole fall and Erth winter again, Bear decides that they will mostly involve getting back to nature. “There’ll be a little bit more outdoor time,” he says. The album’s title harks back to Whole Earth, a counterculture periodical published by artist and biologist Stewart Brand during the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. Focused on ecological and social justice, Whole Earth was a catalogue of ideas packed with reviews of carpentry tools, guides for self-sustainable food growing, and even deep dives into community action projects led by the Black Panther Party.

Bear first discovered the catalogue through his peers in the San Francisco scene. “Memorabilia is sort of always just floating around,” he explains. “I remember finding some of the stuff when I was on a trip in Bolinas. There’s this builder/maker guy called Lloyd Khan out there who puts out his own books, and he was a contributor to Whole Earth early on. I started nerding out on all that stuff.”

“A lot of people from that era now are senior citizens,” he adds. “That passing down of information is so important. I feel like there’s such a generational divide that we need to work on. Older people are super inspiring; I really try to pay attention to that generation. They’ve already been through insane politics and technological leaps, even pandemics. None of this is new. There’s always hope.”

Toro’s Hole Erth is missing its ‘W’ and ‘H’ so that listeners can fill in the gaps themselves. As much as the album plays to Stewart Brand’s catalogue, it is still very much its own world. “I wanted to reference it without it being a direct tie,” elaborates Bear. “To make people dig deeper is the fun part – hopefully someone will catch the reference.” Although Hole Erth traces a new kind of sonic landscape for Bear, it still fits his tribe. “Through all Toro’s projects I feel like I’ve talked to a specific demographic: the misfit, the creative, the person trying to get out of whatever hole they’re in,” he says.

It's obvious that Bear has taken great care to grow his complex and intricate planet, and the character’s journey through fame, the constellation imagery, and the Whole Earth references all speak to his interest in storytelling. “I just think there’s something fascinating about lore and urban myths – the best parts of life are these stories,” he gushes.

He speaks especially profoundly about astrology: “I would say that stuff holds as much water as not believing in it. I don’t not believe in it. There’s something so compelling about lifelong ancestral lore. I do think that’s our power being human: being able to communicate and pass on these stories and songs. No other species is communicating like that. Well, maybe trees and whales, but I think there’s something to all these symbols and signs we have from thousands of years ago.” On “Madonna” he pleads for us not to ask him his star sign but I discover he’s a Scorpio. “I’m not sure what you can do with that info though,” he says, laughing.

Next for Bear is playing Hole Erth live, with a few US shows planned this year and a European tour in 2025. He recognises the irony in starting small rather than touring the whole earth. “I’m pacing myself!” he says. “We can’t hit the whole world in a week.”

He’s got responsibilities to work on in his own world too, mainly navigating fatherhood. Hole Fall isn’t just about reconnecting with nature and storytelling. It also involves occasionally having to pick your daughter up from daycare when there’s a COVID scare. “That’s one of those things you don’t think about when you have a kid,” he says. “And then all of a sudden your day is gone”. Luckily, though, his daughter (Toro y Baby) seems to be a fan of the album. “I’ve played her some of it, and she was there for some of the sessions too. It’s hard to tell though. She’s only 7 months old, but she was smiling so that’s good.”