Following the ever-emotive Boo Boo, Toro y Moi's new album Outer Peace is a time capsule that captures our relationship to contemporary culture into one comprehensive, sonic package. As both a producer and designer, Chaz Bear utilizes abstract sound pairings with recognizable samples for his most pop influenced record to date, including features from ABRA, WET, and Instupendo. This is no departure from his funk and disco roots, which can be heard on "Ordinary Pleasure," later fusing into variations of house with tracks like "Freelance" and "Laws of the Universe." Smooth interludes melt into fast paced beats, paralleling the feeling of driving through the Bay Area, where Bear spent most of his time writing the album. Outer Peace is duality. It embodies whatever form you choose to inhabit in the moment. Listen and let your imagination become the universe.
We've all been to parties and shows where masterful DJs ignite the room. They're the ones where the music seems less like a string of songs and more like the night's soundtrack, complete with seamless transitions, a rich variety of tone and tempo, and a little something that appeals to everyone. On Outer Peace, Toro Y Moi is handing you a ready-made playlist for your next get-together, and most miraculously he didn't need to cull from a bottomless selection of artists to do it. No, he wrote all of this himself.
The record opens with throbbing energy. Songs like "Fading," "Ordinary Pleasure," and "Laws of the Universe" strut with funky attitude, displaying a touch of electro-dance acts like LCD Soundsystem or De Lux but benefiting from a cool ease that sets the sound apart from others in the genre. Then the lights dim and the mood turns coy and flirty, with R&B-infused tracks like "Miss Me," "New House," and "Monte Carlo" vibrating irresistibly. The album feels over too soon, which speaks less to its length than its intoxicating freshness. Across its ten songs, there is not so much as a single weak second.
Toro Y Moi is a prolific songwriter, and Outer Peace does not just do his career justice; it extends his influence and proves that his ten or so years on the scene is in no way making him stale. This is a spectacular record, and a strong start to 2019.