Chazwick Bundick, AKA Toro y Moi, recently suggested in an interview that there was never really a “chillwave.” Instead, he feels that he and fellow _____wave acts like Neon Indian and Washed out were simply “making similar music at the same time.” Then I suppose none of these flash in the pan genres have existed? Look, chillwave was/is real. Just because the LeBron James and Chris Bosh decide they don’t belong to their teams anymore, doesn’t mean that the teams don’t exist…Well, maybe it kinda does. There is no reason in the world for this to give me an existential panic. It happened. It did, and it was electrically chilled out and samply and reverby and exotic and tons of hipsters and townies chilled out to it and formed equally-chilly local bands. It’s bigger than you, founding chillers.

But, even though things are still pretty relaxed, Chillwave DENIER Bundick has readied a new collection of songs as Toro y Moi, and things have changed. Under The Pine, this spring’s full-length, shows of a version of the project that seems a lot more like a band! And, where 2010′s Causers Of This was a great, stylish album, it was extremely hard to form relationships with the songs because of the blanket-aesthetic of constant low-pass filtering and a whole, whole lot of processing. It was very easy to like the album and recognize Toro Y Moi, but ultimately it sounded like an idea, executed by a dude, in a bedroom (which I guess it mostly was). I always wondered what Causers would sound like, if the album had been performed by humans and didn’t have so much of the signature filtering.

And now I know! Pine is EXACTLY that. Much of the charm of the first album is maintained, but the songs really have identities of their own that you can get to know individually. The band actually seems to have changed as much as you can while still totally maintaining its recognizability. Maybe it’s the mood that has remained. I struggle to draw really clear lines of comparison between the two albums, and yet it is very obviously the same. This album has fantastic funk-sense, rich harmony vocals through much of it, it has (totally chill) freak outs, and the welcome inclusion of organic instruments. The only prominent filter-sweep on the album, in the song “Good Hold,” is a DOOZY, too.. almost as if to say “Yeah, we did this last time.” With headphones on, I thought I was having a stroke. It’s pretty cool, actually.

So, call it what you want. I guess these sub-genres are only as real as we treat them (though we sure did treat you-know-whatwave like it was real). This band has made two very different and somehow also very similar, good albums. Highly recommended. Now, I’m going to go try and figure out what else isn’t real, which will end up with me trapped in bed. Thanks, Chaz.

Recommended track: “How I know.” Probably the best song this band has given us yet. Major repeat-play potential.