Chaz Bundick aka Toro y Moi has announced the release of his fourth studio album under this moniker. The follow up to 2013’s Anything In Return will be titled What For? and is set to be released on April 7th via Carpark Records. Along with the album announcement, Toro y Moi also shared the record’s lead single “Empty Nesters,” which made its world premiere on Zane Lowe’s BBC Radio 1 show last night.
In 2011 Chaz released Underneath the Pine, the follow up to his debut album Causers of This which was released in the previous year. Both albums saw Bundick break through as the leading figure of chillwave, a newly formed sub genre which intertwined laid-back R&B atmospherics with wistful pop music. Since then, Bundick has shifted towards a wider range of sounds with every album release. Most notably, last year, Chaz released Michael, his debut effort under his more beat-driven, and experimental dance side project, Les Sins.
When he released Anything In Return a couple of years ago, Chaz described it as having “sort of a ’90s dance mix sound” and that it was “influenced by lots of different types of house, from deep house to two-step.” Likewise, in the press release, Bundick went onto explain what the new album would sound like; he said, “I’ve done electronic R&B and more traditional recorded type R&B stuff. I just wanted to see what else was out there. It’s all coming from the same mind set and point of creativity. It’s just me trying to take what I already have, and then take it further.”
Bundick also shared the album’s cover art. It captures the singer/producer sitting in front of a form of street art picturing a blue sky of wispy clouds with Chaz’s head directly in line with the sun. Elsewhere on the sleeve, the album’s title is embellished in a cloud-like font at the bottom-left hand corner.
What For? will include ten brand new songs along with contribution from Julian Lynch and Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s Ruban Nielson. The full track-listing for the record is as follows: 1. “What You Want,” 2. “Buffalo,” 3. “The Fight,” 4. “Empty Nesters,” 5. “Ratcliff,” 6. “Lilly,” 7. “Spell It Out,” 8. “Half Dome,” 9. “Run Baby Run,” 10. “Yeah Right.” As with every Toro y Moi release, What For? will continue to see the South Carolina singer/producer venture into a new direction whilst staying true to his signature sound.