Columbia-born Toro Y Moi 'paints a picture that is grand' with 2024 album 'Hole Erth' (2025)

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Columbia-born Toro Y Moi 'paints a picture that is grand' with 2024 album 'Hole Erth' (6)

Columbia-born musician Chaz Bear has proven himself a stylistic chameleon over the last 14 years producing under the moniker Toro Y Moi, fusing sonic kinetics of pop, folk and R&B with ambient, psychedelic and techno.

His latest studio album “Hole Erth” is an electro-morphic hip-hop record, delving into emo-rap and pop-punk facets of his kaleidoscopic sound. And while moments of angst do surface, the atmosphere is ultimately intended to be an escape for listeners.

Columbia-born Toro Y Moi 'paints a picture that is grand' with 2024 album 'Hole Erth' (7)

“I want people to not be as introspective when listening to this record,” Bear told The Post and Courier. “It's a crazy time, and getting introspective right now might just suck you into a depression or something. So I wanted to just help uplift.”

Nine featured artists guest star throughout the 13-song tracklist on “Hole Erth,” which clocks in at just over 40 minutes. Bear said that while knew the seed of the project would be hip-hop, it was refreshing to run into the unexpected and watch it develop during the collaborative process.

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“This was a fun project to wear my producer hat and take a step back somewhat from vocals and push what the dynamic could be between my music and other people's vocals and melodies,” he said. “The songs ‘Undercurrent’ with Don Toliver and 'Starlink' with glaive — that work stuck out to me the most.”

Toro Y Moi is an exercise in finding new corners of his songwriting personality, he said, and that quest has to be interesting to him if it’s going to sound interesting to anyone else. So he figured he may as well go into superhero or “Super Saiyan” mode for the latest album, which released Sept. 6.

Columbia-born Toro Y Moi 'paints a picture that is grand' with 2024 album 'Hole Erth' (9)

“If we’re going to go far, then let’s go far, right?” he said.

Bear likened the feeling of “Hole Erth” to an action film. It’s his Quentin Tarantino moment — starting with a big ending before taking people back to the beginning to show them how the plot unfolds.

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“There's more heightened experiences within the songs than with any of the previous Toro stuff,” he said. “I really wanted to make it otherworldly and paint a picture that was grand. So by starting the record off with ‘I'm in Paris in a cab,’ I want the listener to immediately think, ‘We're leaving South Carolina, we're leaving California.’ And then it immediately goes to this ‘CD-R’ origin story,” he said referring to the title of the second track.

From the eye-bending cover art to the double meaning of “hole,” the current record is all about perspective.

Columbia-born Toro Y Moi 'paints a picture that is grand' with 2024 album 'Hole Erth' (11)

“I had this theory in my head that maybe we're already in the black hole, which is the internet,” Bear said. “The cover image of the stars is like the American flag, but it’s swirling, and you’re not sure if it's a galaxy. It could be going down the drain or stirring in a pot. It could be all of these images.”

“Hole Erth” follows up Toro Y Moi’s 2023 EP “Sandhills,” which is quite a different trip from its new age-y successor. The indie folk EP was accompanied by a short film documenting his homecoming to Columbia. And of course, the dreamy nostalgia signature to Toro Y Moi is at the forefront.

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“I wanted to make a record that showed me at my truest form,” Bear said of “Sandhills.” “That’s what really informed the slow pace and the earnest lyrics. I wanted to talk to my people at home. I hadn’t been home in 12 years. It's a postcard, like, ‘I still think about you all the time.’"

At the time of its release, he subconsciously knew where Toro Y Moi was going, he said. But before anyone could care about where he’s headed, they need to know where he came from. South Carolina is lucky to be that place.

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Chelsea Grinstead

Chelsea Grinstead is a South Carolina native and a reporter for The Post and Courier coveringarts, entertainment and culture. As a previous contributing editor at Charleston City Paper, she spotlighted the diverse voices of the local music scene.

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Columbia-born Toro Y Moi 'paints a picture that is grand' with 2024 album 'Hole Erth' (2025)
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