About Toro y Moi
Chaz Bear , known professionally as Toro y Moi, is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and graphic designer. He is often recognized as a spearhead of the chillwave genre in the 2010s, alongside contemporaries Washed Out and Neon Indian, although his music has explored various styles since. His stage name is a multilingual expression consisting of the Spanish words toro and y and the French word moi .
Chaz Bear was born on November 7, 1986, in Columbia, South Carolina, to a Filipino mother and a black father. He attended Ridge View High School, where he formed the indie rock band the Heist and the Accomplice with three schoolmates.
Bear graduated from the University of South Carolina in spring of 2009 with a bachelor's degree in graphic design. Late in his school career, Toro y Moi formed a close musical relationship with fellow chillwave artist Ernest Greene, who performs under the name Washed Out.
In mid-2009, Bear was signed to Carpark Records, on which he released his debut Toro y Moi full-length album, Causers of This, in January 2010. On Causers of This, Bear experimented with sampling and production techniques using the digital audio workstation Reason. The album garnered comparisons to the "chillwave" subgenre; however, Bear stated that he never classified his music as such. Bear refers to the album's subject matter as "personal," calling it a "break-up album." Tours supporting Ruby Suns, Caribou, and Phoenix followed the album's release.
Bear's second album, Underneath the Pine, was released on February 22, 2011. The album was recorded at Bear's home between tours while supporting Causers of This. Underneath the Pine marked a stylistic departure from the previous album in that it was made up of all live instrumentation and contained no samples. Bear cites horror movie soundtracks, space disco, and film composers Piero Umiliani and François de Roubaix as inspiration for the album's sound. Further, Bear states that "...what influenced Underneath the Pine was finding stuff that I wanted to sample for Causers. A lot of the things I sampled for Causers ended up being the main musical inspiration for Underneath the Pine."
In an interview with the website At the Sinema, he suggested that he had moved beyond the chillwave genre: "All that stuff is really good music, like Ernest Green and Neon Indian. I'm a big fan of all of that, but I think was just a small little period where we all were, coincidentally."
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