Toro y Moi: Anything in Return
Carpark
Chad Bundwick says he wrote Anything in Return for his girlfriend of eight years, who likes Justin Bieber and the-Dream. While these songs aren’t poppy enough for, say, the radio, expect them to share playlists with Caribou, Junior Boys, Lemonade, and anything you would hear at Express. His third LP, Anything in Return, makes the summer of 2010 seem like it happened a long time ago. Here, a mildly sarcastic player-vibe permeates, implicit in the use of Auto-Tune, house synths, grating vocal loops, velvet piano, surprisingly heavy bass, and beats set to perfect rhythm. Bundwick’s songwriting still holds doggedly to realism, even if that perspective is a tad young and unaffected. Now, if his girlfriend ever leaves him, I want to hear the album that follows that. (3 out of 5 stars)