Today, Toro y Moi announces Unerthed: Hole Erth Unplugged, due for release on September 19 via Dead Oceans. Unerthed: Hole Erth Unplugged is a reimagination of the acclaimed 2024 album Hole Erth, with songs rearranged for guitar, piano, drums, and strings. The collection adds a curious postscript to Hole Erth’s unexpected, inspired, madcap pivot into rap-rock, hyperpop, and Y2K emo.
Speaking on the album, Chaz Bear shares, “The idea to begin this project came while listening to Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged record. I love how the rearrangement brought out so many intricacies of their songwriting and gave context to the original recordings and the decisions made… Americana has always been a major theme in my music. I asked myself what could be more edgy than Rap-Rock turned Alt-Country? Hole Erth and Unerthed was meant to be a dual album from the beginning, the vision is complete. Enjoy…”
Toro y Moi also releases the first single from the record, “CD-R (unerthed).” A nod to the DIY grind of Chaz Bear’s formative era, the new version trades the original’s trap beats and autotuned sad boi bars for soft strums and lap steel flourishes, with Bear’s vocals left wistful and bare.
Listen to “CD-R (unerthed)” here.
Daring in its own right, Unerthed reveals a deft songwriter unguarded, inhabiting lyrics and instrumentation with uncomplicated poise and clever turns of phrase and melody. It’s a return to basics for the shapeshifting Bay Area artist, a chance to excavate and shed new light on the material. These elemental revelations have been at the core of Bear’s project all along, from his earliest CD-Rs to the many mutations of psych-funk, synth-pop, deep house, and beyond that have kept the independent music world transfixed and guessing for nearly two decades. But Unerthed sounds it out more clearly, underscoring that there has only ever been one genre here: Toro y Moi.