Chaz Bear (born Chazwick Bradley Bundick; November 7, 1986), 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 (meaning "bull" and "and", respectively) and the French word moi (meaning "me").
Early life
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.
Career
2010: Causers of This
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.
2011: Underneath the Pine and Freaking Out EP
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 (Washed Out) and Neon Indian. I'm a big fan of all of that, but I think [chillwave] was just a small little period where we all were, coincidentally."
On September 13, 2011, Toro y Moi released an EP titled Freaking Out, featuring a cover of "Saturday Love" by Cherrelle and Alexander O'Neal. The EP's sound was heavily influenced by 80's Boogie and R&B.
The band was chosen by Caribou to perform at the ATP Nightmare Before Christmas festival that they co-curated in December 2011 in Minehead, England.
2012–2013: Anything in Return
In January 2013, Bear released his third Toro y Moi studio album, Anything in Return, which he described as having a '90s dance and R&B sound. According to him, the album was "influenced by lots of different types of house, from deep house to two-step [...] The chords ['Harm in Change' and 'Say That'] use—that's just something I've been a fan of for a while. I really wanted to mess around with those kinds of elements and revisit what I did on Causers of This, but make those elements a little bit better and more apparent." The album was called "highly indebted to the late sacrosanct hip-hop producer J Dilla" by the San Francisco Bay Guardian. Bear stated that he wanted to combine the electronic production of his first record with the elements of traditional instrumentation of his second album.
2014–2015: What For? and Samantha mixtape
Bear released What For?, his fourth studio album as Toro y Moi, on April 7, 2015, on Carpark Records. The album marked a further departure in sound from previous releases with a guitar-based rock sound, drawing inspiration from artists such as Big Star, Talking Heads, Todd Rundgren, Tim Maia, and Cortex.
Later that year, Bear released the hip hop–influenced mixtape Samantha via a Dropbox link. The free, 20-track mixtape features collaborations with Washed Out, Rome Fortune and Nosaj Thing, among others.