TORO Y Moi - Anything In Return 2xLP

Label: Carpark

Toro y Moi, alias South Carolina’s Chaz Bundick, has built his reputation through producing punchy and beat-heavy music, suitably fronted by his own voice. Chillwave is a label often thrown at him, but his music is often more complex than much of what falls under that banner.

The music found on his third studio album, Anything in Return, is not grandly different to what preceded it; but there is a harder edge here which is more constant than on previous releases. Beats are larger, the melodies more prominent, and as a whole it serves as both a continuation and extension of the upbeat sounds heard on 2011’s Freaking Out EP.

Anything in Return is, in short, an energetic mixture of dirty pop and hip hop beats, laden with often-ebullient high-end melodies. Here, Toro y Moi goes longer and harder than before, and the results represent an accentuation of the elements which appealed in his prior work.