Toro y Moi - Outer Peace

January 18, 2019 - Carpark Records

In rural Sonoma County, Chaz Bundick (now Chaz Bear) crafted his thirty-one-minute album Outer Peace with aims to relate with the working-class adult overexerting itself in the new workplace—a chair at home. Let’s take a look at how Chaz did. We are going to define a metric by which to measure the relatability of content to its target audience. From learning to be your own boss to realizing that you can or cannot afford a new house, Mr. Moi has you covered. Covered with inspiration and commiseration. The album is lukewarm, but the heart is there. For those without a graphic design career or any remote office options, the heart is maybe not there, the heart is maybe a little put-on.

Here’s a teaser: there’s a fun Daft Punk homage that we’ll get to later. But the first song is ‘Fading,’ boldly predicts you’ve been tired before, on like an existential level. Pow! Pop a squat and let’s have a listen. Pleasant enough to a distracted listener but lacking impact, ‘Fading,’ according to Mr. Bear is “about how things get really scary sometimes and the only thing left to do is just have hope.” This tactic seems to have worked pretty well for him, but looking towards the global south it seems like it lacks universal function. Lyrically ambiguous and frankly written as an airy discotheque love song, ‘Fading’ features engaging percussion and enjoyable vocal synths indicative of pining. So, I don’t know what he’s talking about. The song is constructed with vapor-wave romance. The synth hook is strong, but lacks follow through. This track gets a 6/10 for relatability.

The second song ‘Ordinary Pleasure’ is completely passable—it's a Tempur-Pedic in terms of something great to sleep on. What I'm pretty sure is a stock bongo sample opens the song, soon taken up with a juicy bassline. The primary lyric, “Maximize all the pleasure, even with all this weather, nothing can make it better,” is reiterated a few too many times, and as a result the self-negating syntax, makes itself known and the original intention behind the line dissipates. A few interesting turns in the song: the crunchy bass following the bongos, and the drop of the vocals from the fore to the background, keep it from being a mindless listen. And surprisingly, the subject matter is uniquely genuine; 7/10--pretty relatable!

‘Laws of the Universe’ comes through stronger, and uses some of the same tricks in ‘Ordinary Pleasure’ to greater effect—a sort of mumblecore lyricism, which is charming in ‘Law of the Universe,’ but was mostly a light jostle in ‘Ordinary Pleasures.’ It’s a cute and endearing song. With vocals mimicking the more prominent riffs, Bear affects an amateur whimsy. He throws in some nice tom-tom rolls to remind you of the time he and Washed Out were friends. That’s nice. Overall, it’s a youthful song, with a lot of playfulness. 4/10--unrelatable.

Completely shifting lanes with singer ABRA, Toro y Moi presents a sparse R&B sex jam ‘Miss Me.’ It feels like the two wanted to work together and then didn’t know where to put the song afterwards. So, it’s here on Outer Peace. The track relies on a reverberated arpeggio and reverb in general. There’s a sleepy hint of FKA Twigs without any of the surrealism. ‘Miss Me’ focuses on how one person means everything to another person and seems to relish a puppet master dynamic between the singer and her ex or current lover. “If you miss me baby, then you’re gonna miss everything.” The narcissism is neither charming nor convincing. 3/10--alienating.

‘New House’ 10/10 for not being able to afford a brand-new house. 10/10 for traveling hassle subject matter, but points off for overdramatizing “Baggage claim is like a war-zone.” 4/10 get over it. In tandem with ‘Baby Drive it Down’ which gets a 6/10 in relatability, we are looking at a sleepy forgettable five and half minutes. That leaves us with a combination 5/10 through some rigorous metric compiling. Reasonably relatable, but unreasonably unengaging.

Now it’s time for the fun Daft Punk homage. The single from the album ‘Freelance.’ Using similar syncopation and chord progressions to Daft Punk’s ‘Around the World’ without resting too much on its derivation, ‘Freelance’ manages to bring some vitality to Outer Peace and achieves the balance required of a conversational disco-techno track. The song is about how freelancing requires one to bend over backwards for clients, “Walk on water for me baby.” Tongue-and-cheek groovy. 4/10 -- pretty unrelatable, I think.

Anyway, that’s it for the highlights. The rest of my time would be spent dressing down the problems and inconsistencies and platitudes in Outer Peace. But against an artist who is known for hopping from one sound to another, it feels like barking at a shadow. Annoying and petulant is the rest of the album. Outer Peace lacks cohesion and focus, which wouldn’t be a problem, but it pretends to have both cohesion and focus. I’m not ready to write off Toro y Moi, but if this was my first experience with him, then I probably would be. ⛰️