Chaz Bundick Leaves the Bedroom

"New Beat" arrived ahead of Underneath the Pine, Toro Y Moi’s second album, and signaled something shifting. Chaz Bundick had built his reputation on bedroom-laptop chillwave—soft, hazy, music processed through frosted glass—but here the bass had actual weight, the drums were in an actual room. That slightly smeared, memory-at-the-edges quality he’s always worked with was still there, but now it breathed differently. More funk in the bones. Still dreamy, but grounded in a way the earlier stuff wasn’t.