#008

Can I say anything that hasn’t already been said about Chaz Bear? He’s gone from a late-night-banger-producing “chillwave” regular to a consistently consistent one-man-band that seems to just exist in a naturally funky, ethereal state. “Anything In Return” is a really great piece of work, and “Outer Peace” was one of my favorite albums of 2019. I still find myself walking around the house humming both “How’s It Wrong” and “Laws of the Universe” regularly, despite how long it’s been since I’ve heard either. When I think 2010’s indie music, Toro y Moi’s is the first voice I hear.

This album bummed me out a little at first. I ultimately think “The Medium,” “Goes By So Fast,” and “Magazine” are fine, but really nothing more than that. I like the echoing, filtered delivery of Bear’s voice on the middle and back half of the third track, but I ultimately think they’re sort of paint-by-numbers opening tracks. “Postman” stopped me in my tracks.

While I’ve always loved his beats and earnestness, I’ve also had the coexisting thought that Bear’s lyricism has been… sort of lame? It’s that degree of lameness where it’s mostly inoffensive, but you’re still raising an eyebrow or squinting a little bit. Leading “The Loop” with “oh my / where did the weekend go?” feels annoyingly twee, “mystic staring at his phone for oneness,” from “Laws of the Universe” even moreso. The internal conflict in me arises, however, when he inevitably and effortlessly delivers the perfect deadpan line of “James Murphy is spinning at my house (I met him at Coachella)” or brings about something like the undeniably cute opening of a track like “Postman.” Maybe this is that last curmudgeonly, fun-hating piece of me dying in real time.

Like the minibus Bear poses in on the cover for Mahal, I think the album really just needs a second to turn over. (You try writing an album review a day without falling into tropes, man.) I don’t think I disliked a second of the rest of it enough to write anything even approaching negative. “The Loop” is in an eternal swordclash with “Postman” as to who can be the more danceable track. “Last Year” feels like a requisite for any music artist that lived through the pandemic, yet is effortlessly jammy and a touch mysterious. (Just stoooop while you’re… stillllllll aheeeaaaaad…) “Mississippi” is pure seduction. “Clarity” an evolving, layered jam session. “Foreplay” already feels like an eternal late summer jam— spacey, sexy and double-sided. “Déjà Vu,” pure psych with its reversed lead guitar chords droning. While every single track may not have me starry-eyed and head-bopping, the lion's share of MAHAL is damn good.

favorite tracks: postman, the loop, foreplay, déjà vu

(would you believe me if i told you that i spent all this time listening to les sins and never realized it was also him? i feel positively stupid lmao)