Toro y Moi. Photo by Beth Townsend
To celebrate the tenth anniversary of his sophomore album Underneath the Pine, Toro y Moi has shared the project's instrumental tracks. The music is available to stream on Apple Music and Spotify, and comes on the heels of a first-ever colored vinyl pressing of the album, out on April 16. Underneath the Pine is also the inspiration behind a new merch drop, which you can browse through here.
Read Chaz Bear's thoughts on the album's creation below.
Hey Everyone,
This was maybe one of the more challenging records to make. It was made between tours for 'Causers' over the course of about 2 months. I'd never really consciously recorded a record. 'Causers' was a bunch of demos that I sort of just whipped together. But, 'Underneath The Pine' was a bit more conceptual in that I wanted to keep it all natural and free of samples and loops. I worked on it at my parents house in South Carolina by myself and recorded while they were at work and would stop around when they came home. Recording 'UTP' really pushed me to learn the proper way to record with multiple mics and acoustic space. I was listening to a lot of disco, funk, astral jazz, and psych rock. The lyrics were once again the last thing I added to the songs, you can hear all of the imperfections and happy accidents sprinkled throughout the record that make so many great moments. When it came to mixing I didn't know what to expect being that I'd never mixed in a studio before. I ended up finding Chase Park Audio in Athens, GA where engineer Drew Vandenberg helped push my insecurities out the way on mixing my vocals. It was the last record I made before moving to California and a lot of the themes in my lyrics were about leaving home and staying in touch with friends and family. For me this record opened the door to make records like 'What For?' and 'Star Stuff' (CBMM2). It was a statement to move beyond the bedroom. Thanks to everyone who has supported me and the band for so long, we honestly wouldn’t be here without you.
peace+love,
Chaz
