Few musicians can say they've helped create entire genres only to leave them behind. Toro Y Moi's Chaz Bundick is one of them, having emerged with chillwave as this decade started before making detours in instrumental hip-hop and eventually settling into funky guitar rock. Certainly the 29-year-old Bundick has more about-faces left in him, but for now, he's turned his focus towards forging some kind of legacy. With this in mind, it should come as no surprise that his recent concert film and accompanying live album, Toro Y Moi: Live at Trona, eschews trends in favor of chasing a timeless aesthetic.
The film sits squarely between classic concert movie and surrealist film. While its setting—the Trona Pinnacles in California's Mojave Desert—naturally inspires awe, director Harry Israelson's approach to capturing the scene is striking in its own regard—candid and filled with subtle risks, chief among them the fact that there is no audience. Instead Israelson deconstructs the boundary between performer and audience by placing the set and crew in front of the camera as much as the six-piece band, who sprawl out into loose renditions and ambient drones.
Israelson and Bundick have workedtogether before, and after approaching Vimeo with Live at Trona's concept, scoured locations for months. We spoke with them a couple weeks back in Brooklyn, around Live at Trona’s premiere, to discuss their attempts at marrying the retro with the contemporary, as well as the evolution of Toro Y Moi.
Pitchfork: Logistically, what was the process like for finding a place in the desert?
Harry Israelson: L.A. has only a number of desert shooting locations and they’ve all been shot so many times. So we just had to keep going further and further. Trona is three hours away, it’s a national park, but one that isn't often visited. There was a 10-mile unpaved jagged rock road to reach it. It was hard to get to, but that’s why I feel watching the film, by the end of it, you’ll feel as though you’re there and in this world, and that’s really because everyone there on set had to go out into that world and isolate themselves.
Watching the film, you get the sense that you were playing out in the desert from morning to night. Did the heat get to you guys at all?
Chaz Budnick: We were only on stage for maybe an hour and a half. The heat wasn’t too crazy, it was April, and you definitely need sunscreen but it wasn’t burning. We brought reflective blankets to put on the synths and the guitars. It’s fun when you’re playing live in the desert like that, to get a chance to jam on the intro to songs.
HI: An interlude, as a music nerd and a quiet but proud Grateful Dead fan, I geeked out on the fact that they built in a transition between one song and another, that’s the only moment where you can actually fluidly move.
The way the songs fit together and flowed, it reminded me of Pink Floyd.
HI: Totally. The main inspiration for the film came from Pink Floyd: Live in Pompeii. They performed in an empty amphitheater in Pompeii. That’s the coolest concert film ever made. So the idea was to point towards something like that, and hopefully get some younger kids appreciating an effort like that.
CB: Trying to keep rock and roll alive.
Chaz, you have said that timelessness is something that really matters to you.
CB: The underlying essence behind timeless art and design and music is that there’s this element that, for some reason, just keeps going through generations. That’s just so curious to me. Like, there’s this amazing thing that makes a table look like it's from the 1960s even though it was made in 1940 or something. You can see old art pieces where you say, “Totally, that’s still around.” I find it fascinating that humans have a tendency to repeat their favorite parts of everything.
HI: I think that’s something that I’ve learned from Chaz. Now we’ve worked on so many projects and we’ve just tried to develop that aesthetic so if you watched it in five years, it wouldn’t feel like it’s outdated. So many things just wash away. But, this film—the color palette and the cameras that we use and the quality that we shot it at, the type of lenses—we used these older zoom lenses that don’t have this HD thing. Hopefully no one watches and says, “Oh, that's 2016.” The sweet spot is pointing to the past but ultimately making it contemporary.
CB: I feel like the best art and music that transcends all generations is the stuff that references life and nature itself the most. The stuff with the most organic elements tends to just last. Look at everything that's made out of natural elements—wood, marble, stone, whatever—and that’s stuff is still here. I just feel like there’s a connection there in the sonic form.
Toro Y Moi was originally a laptop-based passion project, but now you’re leading a six-person band. What has that transition been like?
CB: It’s crazy because I’ve grown up with these guys since high school and college. These are my friends, they’re not hired musicians. To have that background first and then also growing with music too, it’s the best case scenario really. I’m so happy that it’s something that’s possible, making a project like this, and having the same crew still.