Toro Y Moi Announces New Album MAHAL

Toro y Moi, a.k.a Chaz Bear, announces his new album MAHAL due April 29th via Dead Oceans. The 13-track project marks the seventh studio album from Bear under the Toro y Moi moniker. To celebrate the announcement, Toro y Moi shares two singles from the forthcoming record 'Postman' and 'Magazine.' Each of the new singles arrives with accompanying visuals. 'Postman,' directed by Kid. Studio, sees Toro and friends riding around the colorful San Francisco landscape in his Filipino jeepney, seen on the cover of MAHAL. 'Magazine,' directed by Arlington Lowell, sees Toro and Salami Rose Joe Louis, who supplies vocals on the track, dressed vibrantly in a photo studio spliced with various colorful graphics and playful edits.

MAHAL's announcement and singles arrive on the heels of Toro's highly celebrated 2019 album Outer Peace, which Pitchfork described as "one of his best albums in years" along with his Grammy-nominated 2020 collaboration with Flume, 'The Difference,' which was also featured in a global campaign for Apple's Airpods. Today's releases mark the first from Toro y Moi since signing to Secretly Group label Dead Oceans. Dead Oceans is an independent record label established in 2007 featuring luminaries like Japanese Breakfast, Khruangbin, Phoebe Bridgers, Bright Eyes, Mitski, Slowdive and more.

Toro y Moi is the 12+ year project of South Carolina-reared, Bay Area-based Chaz Bear. In the wake 2008’s global economic collapse, Toro y Moi emerged as a figurehead of the beloved sub-genre widely known as chillwave, the sparkling fumes of which still heavily influence musicians all over today. Over the subsequent decade, his music and graphic design has far, far surpassed that particular designation. Across 9 albums (6 studio as Toro y Moi along with a live album, compilation and mixtape) with the great Carpark label, he has explored psych-rock, deep house, UK hip-hop; R&B and well-beyond without losing that rather iconic, bright and shimmering Toro y Moi fingerprint. As a graphic designer, Bear has collaborated with brands like Nike, Dublab and Van’s. And as a songwriter and producer, he’s collaborated with other artists like Tyler, The Creator, Flume, Travis Scott, HAIM, and Caroline Polachek.

Pre-order / save MAHAL: https://toroymoi.deadoc.co/mahal

Toro y Moi - 'Postman' (Official Video) 
Listen / Download: https://toroymoi.deadoc.co/postman-magazine

Toro y Moi - 'Magazine' feat. Salami Rose Joe Louis (Official Video)
Listen / Download: https://toroymoi.deadoc.co/postman-magazine

More about Toro y Moi:

Toro y Moi’s seventh studio album, MAHAL, is the boldest and most fascinating journey yet from musical mastermind Chaz Bear. The record spans genre and sound—encompassing the shaggy psychedelic rock of the 1960s and ‘70s, and the airy sounds of 1990s mod-post-rock—taking listeners on an auditory expedition, as if they’re riding in the back of Bear’s Filipino jeepney that adorns the album’s cover. But MAHAL is also an unmistakably Toro y Moi experience, calling back to previous works while charting a new path forward in a way that only Bear can do.
 
MAHAL is the latest in an accomplished career for Bear, who’s undoubtedly one of the decade’s most influential musicians. Since the release of the electronic pop landmark Causers of This in 2009, subsequent records as Toro y Moi have repeatedly shifted the idea of what his sound can be. But there’s little in Bear’s catalog that will prepare you for the deep-groove excursions on MAHAL, his most eclectic record to date. 

The second the album begins we’re immediately transported into the passenger seat, jeep sounds and all, ready for the ride Chaz and company have concocted for us. Seeds of some of MAHAL’s 13 songs date back to the more explicitly rock-oriented What For? from 2015. MAHAL was mostly completed last year in Bear’s Oakland studio with the involvement of a host of collaborators, Sofie Royer and Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s Ruban Neilson to Neon Indian’s Alan Palomo and the Mattson 2.

"I wanted to make a record that featured more musicians on it than any other record of mine,” he explains. “To have them live on that record feels grounded, bringing a communal perspective to the table.” As a result, MAHAL is lush and surprising at every turn, from the cool-handed 'The Loop,' which recalls Sly and the Family Stones, to the elastic psych rock of 'Foreplay' and the dizzying Mulatu Astatke-recalling of 'Last Year.'

Lyrically, the album zooms in on generational concerns, picking up where the Outer Peace standout 'Freelance' effectively left off. Bear seems to be surveying the ways in which we connect with technology, media, each other, and what disappears as a result. Cuts like the squishy 'Postman' and 'Magazine' take a deep dive into our relationship with media in a changing digital world. “It’s interesting to see how we adapt to this new age. We’re so connected, but we’re still missing out on things,” Bear ruminates while discussing the album’s themes.

It’s not all introspection. Bear cools things down near the album’s end with the Mattson 2-featuring 'Millennium,' a laid-back jam with tricky guitar licks about ringing in new times even when everything else seems upside down. “It’s about enjoying the new year, even when it’s been shitty,” Bear explains. “There’s nothing else to do.” Finding a sense of joy in the face of adversity is embedded in MAHAL’s DNA, right down to the jeepney that literally and figuratively brings the music out into the community. “We know that touring is messed up for now, and large gatherings are a fluke,” he explains. “It’s about the notion of us going out to the people and bringing the record to them.” And with the wide-open atmosphere of MAHAL, Toro y Moi stands to connect with more listeners than ever before.

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