Reinventing the Wheel and the Price of Constant Change with Toro y Moi's Hole Erth

A musician’s career has never hinged more on creative direction than it does in today’s digital, social media-driven world. To be remembered now means to be instantly recognizable, tied to a specific identity or visual aesthetic — that’s where creative direction comes in. In a place of endless scrolling, where our attention flits between countless pieces of content, standing out can be a challenge. For some, creative direction has become the key to cutting through the noise.

Such is the case with Toro y Moi, the polymath musician whose latest album, Hole Erth, is yet another showcase of his creative reinvention. This year, his versatility has been proven once more through his creative energy, as his visual aesthetics and wardrobe choices have also grown in tandem with his music. Known as one of the pioneers of chillwave, Chaz Bear has always embraced different creative directions, but the bold plunge into SoundCloud rap and Y2K emo is a headfirst dive into genres that not many would typically associate with him. As his audio and visual aesthetics continue to morph, it has left many listeners intrigued, and some polarized.

Image credit: Cinque Murbarak

The constant musical reinvention may feel like watching an actor juggle a series of wildly different roles with some stripping away his identity. For long-time fans familiar with his b-sides, Hole Erth feels like the culmination of ongoing experimentation from 2017’s Boo Boo and 2019’s Soul Trash. I'm not sure if those previous releases were experiments prior to Hole Erth or if they were intended to allude to something bigger such as the album, but it missed the mark in some ways for me.

It has a strong influence from emo and trap, with a tinge of punk elements sprinkled with nihilistic lyrics, but as I listened to it, I felt like Bear was only meeting the expectations for each of these genres rather than contributing something fresh. Indeed, the album's experimental nature has elicited a spectrum of reactions — some embrace the novelty with open arms, while others lament the departure from his earlier work and SoundCloud rap fans may not resonate with him. I fall in between the first two, and I acknowledge that I'm probably not the album's target audience because I don't know much about this type of rap music.

The opening lines of the album, “We back like bad teenagers (Yeah), So sad it's not contagious (Yeah, yeah), Please stay and entertain us (Aye), like Beckham and Victoria”, seem to try for a blend of irreverence with a slightly rebellious tone, and reminded me of the raw, unfiltered lyric “Maybe I just pay attention, I don't give a fuck” from Outer Peace — where the latter’s bluntness created a more punchy impact in delivery. As the album continued on, Bear's foray into these genres felt slightly off the beaten path of what's authentic to him despite the undeniably admirable effort in releasing this. After all, he is impossible to pigeon-hole in music.

As a long-time Toro y Moi fan who started out with his indie roots, this record fell short for me because of the mismatch between the softness of his voice and the emo trap vocals he was aiming for. Most of us who were around for Anything in Return probably didn't think we'd live to hear a trap version of him with CD-R or rapping about strippers in Babydaddy. Yet, this is what makes him exciting to keep up with — at his core, he is a creator and his insatiable curiosity cannot be separated from him. Bear's music trajectory is unquestionably evidence of the fluidity of artistic identity. Besides, if you didn't resonate with this like I did, who knows, the next one might be your favourite.

Image credit: Toro y Moi

Aside from the the new record and focusing on his music, I’m rather interested in the way Bear produces music as a way of curating an anthology of genres, where each album reveals a different facet of his artistic persona. In this respect, Hole Erth was a good storytelling record with some catchy beats given its flaws where the boldness in its attempt captures the spirit of Bear and inspires me to adopt the same mindset. Although, he definitely has over a decade in the music business under his belt to confidently do whatever he wants these days.

Ultimately, my question remains: can reinvention ever become too much? Often times, a constant change in reinvention can feel like like an exercise in musical whack-a-mole. Just as fans begin to embrace one iteration of Toro y Moi, he’s already shifted gears, exploring new sonic frontiers. 

Whether you resonate with Hole Erth or wish for him to give us what we want, we can only marvel at how this guy doesn’t care about risking alienation of his fans but continues to do his own thing. Who knows what’s to come in Toro y Moi’s world?