Holy Whole: Toro y Moi Interviewed
From his name down, Toro y Moi has sought to bring together disparate elements into something whole. A fusion of Spanish – ‘toro’ meaning bull – and French, with ‘moi’, his artistic signifier is based on amalgamation.
The producer’s new album ‘Hole Erth’ takes this a step further. An artist who has always thrived on evolution, the music finds Toro y Moi zeroing in on contemporary hip-hop tropes, while also looking to his bedrock in pop and indie.
Out now, it takes the advances of his 2022 record ‘Mahal’ and transplants them into a completely fresh landscape. A work of challenging maturation, it presents technical challenges and thought-provoking lyrics, while also operating as a vivid, ultra-colourful song cycle.
Hitting London for an all-too-brief visit, Toro y Moi played a DJ set at Café 2001 in Shoreditch. CLASH writer Sasha Mills caught up with the producer – real name Chazwick Bundick – for an in-depth conversation.
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Clash: What I’d like to start with is the Whole Earth Catalog [an American counterculture magazine, first published in 1968]. How did you find it? And how does it play into the record? That’s very interesting to me, that it would be pulled as your source for the album’s name.
Chazwick: I think living in the Bay for the past 12 years, in California, that kind of stuff has seeped into the culture out there. That sort of bohemian mindset, it was kind of inevitable that I found some way to align with that culture. It kind of just clicked. I almost named ‘MAHAL’, ‘Whole Earth’. The name was too good, I had to make sure that I used it. But it’s also just where my mindset is now, this idea of reintroducing the Whole Earth Catalog and the ideas behind it to a new generation.
When you listen to this record, you don’t get bohemian vibes. It’s not psychedelic rock or anything. It’s very much electronic hip-hop. But I think that’s the new conversation, this contemporary sound, so I just wanted to bridge this gap [between] this classic mindset with this new wave of music.
Clash: It’s interesting that you say that ‘MAHAL’ was almost called ‘Whole Earth’, because there are elements of ‘MAHAL’ that sound like they align with that kind of vibe. I think that the spirit of this album to me felt quite, maybe, scrappy? I don’t know if that’s the right word.
Chazwick: Angsty?
Clash: Yeah, angsty. It’s interesting, because when I listen to your other recent stuff, it’s quite polished. And this feels like it could be a first album, in a really good way. There’s an adolescence to it, and it made me wonder, how much of this album is informed by your nostalgia and your memories?
Chazwick: You know, I’m 37 now, I’m also a Dad now, and so when I reflect on my trajectory and where I want Toro y Moi as a project to go, I want it to connect with the youth, and I want it to still be something that can bridge that age gap as well.
So, if anything, I was just sort of trying to hold onto that energy. It doesn’t last forever. And so to put out something that’s a little more angsty, a little bit more energy, that has some sort of bravado. There’s a little bit more of a flex to it. I wanted to try and do that, and at the same time just grow up, and have no [reservations] just jumping into the genre. I do think that hip-hop has been around for long enough now where people of all generations can enjoy the genre.
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Clash: I know that he’s featured on the album, I don’t know if he’s involved in the production, but having listened to Kevin Abstract’s most recent album ‘Blanket’, I did feel a real synergy with that. Was that intentional, or just a product of collaboration?
Chazwick: We’ve been talking for a sec, and he was like, ‘Yeah, I want to come up and work on something’. It was completely by chance. I told my engineer, just click a track and we’ll just start working on whatever session that is. And it happened to be ‘Heaven’.
He’d brought his friend Lev, whom I’d never met, and Lev went and added the intro that you hear, and then Kevin did his version of that. And I was like, ‘Okay, this is a thing. This is strange, but I can make it work’.
I think artists right now – especially those to push contemporary conversations and push genres – I feel like we’re all sort of speaking the same language. There is this rap rock movement happening. I don’t think that anybody is trying to find that way to write, I just think that a lot of people, especially those from the suburbs, are just sort of in the same mindset, sound-wise.
Clash: This was quite a quick project to come together. Was there a reason for that?
Chazwick: To be fair, I was working on this record at the same time as ‘MAHAL’. It was just a matter of getting a collection of songs that I felt comfortable with, and I was going to put ‘Hole Erth’ out first, but ‘MAHAL’ just wrapped sooner, because it was so [collaborative], and COVID-19 just put a stop to that. So I was like, ‘Okay, I guess ‘MAHAL’ is done’.
One thing that I really wanted to do with this record was put my producer hat on, and really get people to put verses on. I’d never really done that.
So if anything, this album took five years as well. It just only took two months to wrap up. It takes me a while to get a record going – years. Usually I have a back catalogue of sessions I need to finish, and I just keep going through and updating things, and deleting things, until I feel like it’s worth using.
Clash: We’ve talked about the Whole Earth Catalog, and this idea of adolescence. What are some of the other seeds that this album came from?
Chazwick: Toro is a bit of a conceptual project in the sense that, even though it’s jumping around in genre, I try to show myself through it still, and I hope that fans can hear that it’s still the same. But seeds, I would say it’s those drum tracks, those are probably what stayed the same throughout the entire process. Those rhythms – even though I changed the kicks or the hi-hats out – those rhythms are still the same. It’s trying to make the space just right.
I knew from the start that it was going to be a hip-hop album. So if anything, that’s the main seed. If you leave certain boundaries, it’s not hip hop anymore – it’s R&B, or electronic. [But] I knew that I wanted it to be hip hop.
Clash: What’s your relationship like with Toro y Moi [the project] like – do you think you’ll switch to doing something else?
Chazwick: I have PLUM, which is my ambient thing, and Les Sins, which is dance production. And I was telling people today on the NTS Discord that [they’re both] on the way. I try not to leave people in the dark too much, but Toro is my bread and butter, and it’s my focus. I’ll try to keep it going as long as I can. I can’t promise that I’ll be on stage when I’m sixty, but it’s fun for now.
Clash: Outside of music, you have a visual practice. I’m really interested in that. What’s it like bridging those two worlds: do they feel connected to you, or are they very different creative practices?
Chazwick: They’re from the same cloth, they’re both aesthetic-based. When I hear a certain genre, I do see or feel a certain thing. I think to have the visual accompany, correctly, the music – depending on what you’re going for, and how much irony there is – it’s important to keep in mind.
Clash: You’ve been working on – I wouldn’t necessarily call them zines, but print projects. How did you get into that?
Chazwick: Recently, I started doing the San Francisco art book fair, and the LA art book fair, and I’ve found that those scenes and communities – that they’re my tribe. That’s where the graphic designers are, that’s where the zine makers are. The subculture, in general, is there.
Anyone approaching this lifestyle authentically knows that they have to go and find it. It’s not going to be on the internet. I think it matters, especially for people that have fans, to show up to these things and to emphasise that you’re real about this. It’s not just, I want to create a moodboard or something. No, I’ll do this for no money. It’s not like I’m making a lot of money off these photo books.
It’s a passion, it’s something in me, that I need to get out just as much as music.
Clash: You’re continually experimenting across quite a few different forms. How have you cultivated that openness?
Chazwick: It’s a practice, for sure. In the literal sense, like practising piano, it wasn’t enjoyable. Doing these things, it is extra stress, when I’m doing just fine in music, but to keep that [artistic] practice going and keep up with [tools] or whatever you’re working with, it matters if you’re really serious about it.
What I get out of it is meeting people that are doing the same thing, in Beijing, or Tokyo, or London. I want to have that community. There is a more communal feeling outside of the music industry. The music industry is somewhat lucrative, but the [visual arts] world, unless you’re ‘that guy’, it’s passion. I feel a connection to that struggle, that drive to continue. It’s important to me, to find it wherever I can.
I wouldn’t say that I’m 100% anti-capitalist, but to keep that practice going, that’s not about profit, it really grounds me. I love the visual arts community for that. It’s just visceral, you’re just getting this creativity out to survive and for your sanity.
Clash: I want to know who your dream collaboration would be. Dead or alive, literally anyone.
Chazwick: You know, AI is scary. You want to work with 2Pac, you can!
I would probably work with someone, honestly, like Arthur Russell, if we’re throwing out here or not here. He’s probably one of my bigger influences. He also transcended genres. Before I had Toro, I was in this indie rock band that would stick to indie rock, and that was that. And that was fun, but there were these urges to go outside that. So I’d say Arthur Russell’s up there.
I’ll pick someone alive as well. Jessica Pratt. I can keep going. It’s hard not to want to pick some kind of collaboration that everyone can capitalise on. It’s more about, who is it that I’m just obsessed with? Jeff Magnum, it’s that kind of stuff.
Clash: I read that for Lost in Translation, Sofia Coppola wanted Bill Murray so badly that she would call him every two weeks. He would say no, and she’d call him again, over and over. I guess a dream collaboration is someone that you’d do that for.
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Let’s talk about touring.
Chazwick: I’m doing the States. I think we’re coming to the UK and Europe. You have to be patient, but it’s happening.
Clash: How does it feel to be doing that now that you’re a Dad?
Chazwick: This [London trip] my first trip away from the fam. I go home tomorrow, so I kept it short. Honestly, the jet lag is not affecting me. I’m already jetlagged from having a baby, I’m babylagged [laughs].
If anything, it just makes me want to partition my time more. Just balance. Before, I had – like, dependants [laughs] – it was very much me in my Chaz world, doing what Chaz wants to do. Now I can’t do that, and I accept it, but it’s an adjustment, for sure. There’s no right time to have a kid. You just have to jump off that clip and grow up.
Clash: Is there anything that you really want to cover that we haven’t talked about?
Chazwick: This is the first album cover that I’ve designed since Boo Boo, back in 2016. I’ve art directed the past couple of records, but I wasn’t making the photo or the layout.
This graphic of the stars swirling, it’s obviously the 50 stars from the American flag, going into a galaxy shape, possibly a black hole or sinkhole.
Clash: Depending on your worldview.
Chazwick: Exactly. I think that’s just where we are. Everything is up in the air, and you can look at that positively or negatively. As an American, I do feel that it’s my duty as an artist to respond. We’re living in a moment of history, and it’s hard to know where we’re going.
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‘Hole Erth’ is out now.
Words: Sasha Mills
Photo Credit: Rich Lomibao
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