The word “chillwave” still comes up pretty often when people are talking about Toro Y Moi, but it’s now been more than a decade since that term really applied to Chaz Bundick’s whole project. Toro Y Moi’s 2010 debut album Causers Of This helped define that whole sound, but his superior sophomore LP Underneath The Pine announced that Bundick was moving on from that style. On his second Toro Y Moi album, Bundick drew on disco and dance-pop and ’80s R&B and Stereolab-style ’90s polyglot pop. He found something new, and he’s been continuing to find new things ever since.

Today happens to be the 10th anniversary of Underneath The Pine. To celebrate that moment, Bundick has shared the all-instrumental version of the LP. Bundick teased that new release over the weekend, tweeting an image of a cassette playing the Underneath The Pine instrumentals, and he dropped that version of the album today.

Since releasing that album, Toro Y Moi has collaborated with chart-topping pop stars, moving into strange and unexplored new territory for a DIY artist. In the past few months, he’s landed his first Grammy nomination and designed a line of running gear for Nike. Listening to Underneath The Pine back in the day, you couldn’t guess that any of that was coming. But the instrumental version of the album shows a restless mind at work, figuring new things out. Stream that version and read Bundick’s message below.

Hey Everyone,

This was maybe one of the more challenging records to make. It was made between tours for ‘Causers’ over the course of about 2 months. I’d never really consciously recorded a record. ‘Causers’ was a bunch of demos that I sort of just whipped together. But, ‘Underneath The Pine’ was a bit more conceptual in that I wanted to keep it all natural and free of samples and loops. I worked on it at my parents house in South Carolina by myself and recorded while they were at work and would stop around when they came home. Recording ‘UTP’ really pushed me to learn the proper way to record with multiple mics and acoustic space. I was listening to a lot of disco, funk, astral jazz, and psych rock. The lyrics were once again the last thing I added to the songs, you can hear all of the imperfections and happy accidents sprinkled throughout the record that make so many great moments. When it came to mixing I didn’t know what to expect being that I’d n ever mixed in a studio before. I ended up finding Chase Park Audio in Athens, GA where engineer Drew Vandenberg helped push my insecurities out the way on mixing my vocals. It was the last record I made before moving to California and a lot of the themes in my lyrics were about leaving home and staying in touch with friends and family. For me this record opened the door to make records like ‘What For?’ and ‘Star Stuff’ (CBMM2). It was a statement to move beyond the bedroom. Thanks to everyone who has supported me and the band for so long, we honestly wouldn’t be here without you. ​

peace+love,
Chaz

The instrumental edition of Underneath The Pine is out now on Company Studio.