Toro y Moi is a part of something. Speckled across the southern east coast, kids are cramping their bedrooms with samplers and synthesizers, making lo-fi dance pop that bounces along at summer time speeds. Along with bands like Washed Out and Neon Indian these Americans are combining Swedish Balearic disco with the lush ambient textures of Animal Collective.

The son of Filipino mother and Black father, Toro y Moi, composes in isolation in his South Carolina home. His songs are relaxed (people call that genre he's in 'chillwave') but lonely. It's dance music you listen on headphones, not in a club.



So there is always a dash of despair in his low key tunes. Take “Blessa,” a shimmery strum along that pans left to right, rhythmically raising and falling in volume. The result is a pleasurable queasiness, like dancing when you've drunk too much at a party because you don't really know anyone.

Toro y Moi inhabits an insular, synthesized world that is frustrated by it's insularity. His standout track, “Take the L to Eave,” lets you in on it too. Every once in a while, a bass line pops out of the haze and gives you a warm fuzzy feeling but when you look past your ipod to the rest of the bus, you know you can't share it with anyone.

Toro y Moi plays Chop Suey on Monday October 19. He opens for Islands.