Toro y Moi – Causers of This

Toro Y Moi is not, as you might imagine, a classical-guitar wielding Spaniard, but the alias of Chaz Bundick, a 23-year-old musician from South Carolina. To be fair, with a name like that, I’d pick a pseudonym too, but Bundick’s choice is telling: a mashup of French and Spanish (‘the bull and me’), it hints at the fusion and confusion that marks his compositions.For his tender years, Bundick is precociously skilled at creating rich, multilayered songs, but they tend to lack character. He’s associated, like bands including Neon Indian and Washed Out, with a newly-coined genre known as ‘chill-wave’ and ‘glo-fi’, but, as these disparate genre names suggest, it’s hard to see what characterises this music other than a vague laid-back, sample-happy attitude.Causers of This is pretty much the musical embodiment of mellow, but after eleven tracks this gets a bit samey. For all the melange of styles ”“ funk, r n b and shoegaze being particularly prominent ”“ and the diversity of sounds and samples on offer here, the tracks generally fail to distinguish themselves, their beginnings and endings sometimes proving impossible to discern.That’s not to say some songs don’t stand out. ‘Low Shoulder’ is great, really catchy and enjoyable, while ‘Blessa’ recalls Animal Collective with its soaring vocal harmonies and rich, evocative sonic textures. The next track, ‘Minors’, can’t quite pull off the same trick, always teetering on the edge of muzak. Its samples are clever and are perhaps intentionally slightly off-tempo, but after a while this starts to jar with the cascading melody they accompany. ‘Causers of this’ showcases a promising female voice, while ‘Freak Love’ gleefully embraces the handclap, but the same effects occur again and again. Sounds enter muffledly before surging to full volume, and then back again, like being underwater, and there’s a general atmosphere of perpetual stuck-ness. ‘Talamuk’ combines vocals skilfully, but delivered in Bundick’s weak, plaintive tone, like most of the album, they can only do so much.That said, Bundick is undeniably talented and this is a pleasant, if incoherent, album, when taken in small doses. Those who like their music mellow and unobtrusive will probably wallow in it, but it left this listener slightly cold.