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Toro Y Moi’s sec­ond album, Under­neath the Pine, was released on Feb­ru­ary 22, 2011, a few days after Radio­head announced and then rapidly released their newest album, and just over a week after Arcade Fire sur­prised every­one who cares about the Grammy Awards by win­ning Album of the Year. Although it was highly antic­i­pated, heav­ily pro­moted, and well received in some cir­cles (Urban Out­fit­ter spon­sored a video and streamed the album before its release, and the band played ses­sions for Sir­ius XMU and Amer­i­can Apparel’s Viva Radio, and the album received Pitchfork’s “Best New Music” des­ig­na­tion), rel­a­tive to those other two events, it seems like Under­neath the Pine sort of snuck into existence.

It’s rel­a­tive to those other two bands that I’ve been think­ing about Toro Y Moi, and espe­cially Under­neath the Pine. I’ve con­sid­ered Radio­head to be the most impor­tant band of “my gen­er­a­tion,” even before they got involved in the music com­merce rev­o­lu­tion with the pay-what-you-will release of In Rain­bows. They’ve enjoyed some com­mer­cial suc­cess while main­tain­ing their alt-cred with most snobs. Arcade Fire is a younger, newer band than Radio­head, and styl­is­ti­cally they’re much dif­fer­ent, but they share some spir­i­tual sen­si­bil­i­ties. For bet­ter or for worse, the bands are of a gen­er­a­tion (“my gen­er­a­tion”), or at least an era. Both trim unapolo­getic dra­mat­ics with sar­donic res­ig­na­tion; both seem to take them­selves extremely seri­ously, and both are very seri­ous. Con­sider the frigid land­scapes on their respec­tive opuses of the aughts, Kid A and Funeral. While those albums tran­scend their cul­tural obses­sions, it is on the strength of the music, itself. When the qual­ity of the music lags even slightly, such as is the case on Hail to the Thief and The Sub­urbs, the zeit­geist takes on a feel­ing that strikes me as bur­den­some. The Sub­urbs has some good songs and sounds, but, really, isn’t it kind of a drag? McKay Stan­gler, writ­ing for Pop­Mat­ters, put into words a lot of what bugs me about that album.

And then there’s Toro Y Moi. Not that Toro Y Moi lacks seri­ous­ness, but it’s a more (dare I say) authen­tic and inti­mate brand of seri­ous­ness. Rather than being iso­lated in some post-apocalyptic win­ter, Under­neath the Pine exists in the four sea­sons of South Car­olina. The album takes its title from the cho­rus of “How I Know,” one of my favorite tracks: “This is where I want you to take me when I die and I’m full of sleep, under­neath the pine on a bed of leaves.” The con­cern here, and else­where in Toro Y Moi’s music, is far less polit­i­cal (if it is ever polit­i­cal, at all — and I can’t rec­ol­lect that it is), but far more social. Toro Y Moi’s Chaz Bundick is nei­ther an iso­lated Kid A, nor is he one of Arcade Fire’s “mod­ern kids” who’ll “eat right out of your hand.”

Lyrics on Under­neath the Pine are con­cerned with iso­la­tion and long­ing, though, but those lyrics strike me as more true to the human con­di­tion, par­tic­u­larly in the mobi­lized soci­ety. On the lead sin­gle, “Still Sound,” for exam­ple, Mr. Bundick sings, “It was a finer life when I was with my friends and I could always see my fam­ily. That’s what I still want now, even if I’m here and I think they won’t be wait­ing. Because I don’t want to be alone.” These are lyrics with which I can relate, and, as sad as they may be, they’re lifted by disco synths, a funky bass line, upbeat drums, and an opti­mistic spirit dis­played in another line, “While you’re there give back a lit­tle more. The return could make you notice that I’m think­ing of a moment — and know it’s still sound.”

What sets Toro Y Moi’s music apart from that by the afore­men­tioned semi-elders is sim­ple: it’s fun. There’s a read­ily observ­able play­ful­ness at the heart of Toro Y Moi that I find espe­cially com­pelling. It’s in the videos, the music, and even in the most seri­ous of lyrics. Play­ful­ness is an under-appreciated qual­ity, often mis­un­der­stood as child­ish and exist­ing sep­a­rately from seri­ous­ness. If a lis­tener can smile and dance while singing along about miss­ing friends and fam­ily, it’s easy to see the false­ness of such a dichotomy.

I’m hope­ful that this is a way for­ward. Toro Y Moi and other artists (Ani­mal Col­lec­tive comes to mind) are mak­ing music that is fun and play­ful with­out sac­ri­fic­ing sin­cer­ity and mean­ing. It’s a com­pelling way to make music, and it’s an even more com­pelling way to live life. For what­ever rea­son, it seems like the nat­ural incli­na­tion is to do oth­er­wise, to keep play­ful­ness and seri­ous­ness apart, to either play around or get seri­ous. Liv­ing life that way takes away some of our most pow­er­ful emo­tional resources when we need them most, leav­ing us less than fully present. A play­ful approach to our seri­ous cir­cum­stances can restore our hope — and know it’s still sound.