While it was may have been Washed Out’s “Feel It All Around”—popularized by Portlandia and thus becoming the indie kid soundscape of urbania—that instigated ridiculous genre names like chillwave, it was Toro y Moi’s 2010 record, Causers of This, that truly solidified the style as something with which to be reckoned. Chaz Bundick, the South Carolinian behind Toro y Moi, in less than a half-decade, has continuously expanded upon the vagueness of the genre, and as such, it’s hard to depict chillwave more precisely than a space inhabited by R&B-inflected headiness and a sort of fuzzed-synth nostalgia.

Then comes Les Sins, Bundick’s dabbling in house music, a genre with longstanding precedence. Besides the double-sided single “Lina” that arrived the same year as his Toro y Moi debut, Michael (Company Records) is our first full-length documentation of Bundick trying out straight-up dance music, and Michael grooves about as hard as you’d expect of a Toro y Moi dance record.

It’s crucial to note that Michael is an album by a dude who contributes to arguably one of the most subdued, albeit fresh, styles of the 2010s, and Michael reads as such. Tracks like “Why” (featuring singer Nate Salman), the back third of “Bother,” and “Sticky” showcase Bundick’s age-old idiosyncrasies of ringing retro wobbly synth tones—all with heavy-handed hints of classic R&B and ’70s jazz-funk. Elsewhere, a chillwave atmosphere is pervasive on “Talk About” and “Do Right.”

It’s in those influences and atmosphere that makes one wonder if Michael could have (or should have) been executed in the Toro y Moi lens. Bundick applies a similar background to Les Sins as he does his other project, even if he is reducing the use of his own voice and his otherwise singer-songwriter approach. It’s in that respect that it feels like Bundick is stifling himself slightly in order to produce Les Sins and at best has made something that parallels the electronic-folk of something like Mount Kimbie’s Cold Spring Fault Less Youth. Les Sins’ songs here are sometimes dance music, as noteworthy tracks “Past” and “Drop” prove, but those songs only observe a dance quality by being upbeat. Michael exists as a batch of house songs, however, like the best of Bundick’s music they might be appreciated more in-house, head-bobbed to by the pot-addled soul.