Born and raised in Columbia, South Carolina, Chaz Bundick aka Toro y Moi has been actively involved in music going back to his early teenage years playing in punk and indie rock bands. Chaz unveiled his Toro y Moi guise in 2001, in which he began incorporating electronics and channeling a wider swath of stylistic influences – from indie rock and ‘60s baroque pop to ‘80s R&B, French house and underground hip-hop – into his own solo music.

Chaz Bundick has proven himself to be as prolific as he is diverse with his subsequent records, always pointing Toro y Moi in new directions while never sacrificing his melodic sensibility or keen ear for arrangements and texture. With 2011’s Underneath the Pine, he delivered a set of motorik space-age funk, trading the smeared production of Causers of This for a more crystalline sound that was still steeped in atmosphere, even without the aid of source material and drum machines.

Toro y Moi’s latest studio album What For? featured Chaz’s meticulous production capturing the feel of a rock band playing together in the same room. While Chaz cites Big Star, Talking Heads and Todd Rundgren, as well as the psychedelic soul of Brazilian legend Tim Maia and the 70s-era jazz-funk of France’s Cortex, as some of the inspirations behind What For?, these names just act as signposts dotting Toro y Moi’s vivid musical landscape.