The soulful and space-age bachelor pad grooves found on Underneath The Pine make for an assured good time this holiday season. However, the real story is progression of Chaz Bundick, the man behind the sounds, from holding the title as the Godfather of Chillwave to new funk upstart. Those buried, gauzy effects are restrained or altogether left behind like training wheels. No longer recording in the bedroom or basement, this self-made indie star bounces between genre and influences and finds out what he can do from the Prince flavor on "New Beat", the delicate Franco-tinged "Before I'm Done" and the Stereolab homage "How I Know". Just when you have forgotten this is a Toro Y Moi album, he throws in a chillwave stunner on "Light Black", just to keep you guessing.
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Toro Y Moi - New Beat
This one took a while to grow on me. Everything from the obvious derivatives on Dye It Blonde to the stories and rumors of bad behavior in concert and interviews had tempered my view. Once I had the right frame of mind, Smith Westerns finally won me over with this flowering garden of glam rock and retro-pop in full bloom. The guitar chorus on "Still New", the tongue-in-cheek Beatles reference on "Imagine, Pt. 3" and the T.Rex sleaze on "End Of The Night" are all places to before you even need to hear the Tommy Hilfiger sales pitch on "Weekend" one more time.
Stream the full album here.
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Smith Westerns - Still New
This people's champion of 2011 is the self-titled sophomore effort for Justin Vernon aka Bon Iver. Who wouldn't love this story going from obscurity and isolation for the recording of an album to guest starring in Kanye West's cirque de grandeur. For the follow up, Vernon aims high by adding strings, percussion and woodwind and reaches those perfectly fragile moments when expressions of emotion meets tempered subtlety. Bon Iver is such a beautifully captured work until it reaches the horrendously ill-advised finale "Beth/Rest" that reminds of the worst ballads found in the annals of music history. Either the listening public is tremendously forgiving or frighteningly irresponsible.
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Bon Iver - Two Tracks
Being known for making the saddest music in the world is a heavy moniker to carry. With a new band member on board for their ninth effort, the Duluth MN trio chose to travel an unfamiliar, yet sanguine, road. The result is an album full of hushed moments, leaving behind the emotive clatter on the past two Low LPs. C'mon has an earnest nature on "You See Everything" and "Witches" that sets up for the eventual weight "Especially Me" and "Nothing But Heart". Despite being ready to try a more positive approach, Low never seems to lose that element of beauty in their music.
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Low - Try To Sleep
Chillwave took some interesting turns this year with some artists' latest efforts fumbling in quality or even abandoning the genre altogether. A couple of these soldiers stayed the course and in the case of Earnest Greene, made a lovingly brisk and freeing album of smooth and coolly effortless synth grooves. Most of the tracks on Within And Without are distant yet enticing with a glacial beat creating an atmosphere with all of the striking beauty of a early evening snowfall.
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Washed Out - Amor Fati
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