This evening, the 40 Watt will be dishing up a real feast. On the menu is Toro Y Moi, Cloud Nothings and The Gold Party. While Toro Y Moi has become well-known in the indie/hipster/blog world, Cloud Nothings and The Gold Party are still emerging. There’s nothing more satisfying than seeing bands on the cusp of serious acclaim at an intimate venue like the 40 Watt. Everyone loves nonchalantly telling the story about how they saw Super Famous Band play at Open Mic Night. My friend’s dad tells an excellent version involving Jimi Hendrix and a grimy little club in the late ’60s. Maybe someday our stories will  be similarly awe-inspiring…

Almost exactly a year ago, we caught up with Toro Y Moi before he played The Drunken Unicorn in Atlanta. When he’s not rockin’ your eardrums, Toro y Moi goes by his given name, Chaz Bundick. The 24-year-old ingenue hails from Columbia, SC where he started experimenting with composing music at the age of 13. Dude has come a long way – his debut album Causers of This was released in January 2010, and over the past year he’s become the darling of many a music blog. Toro y Moi was a pioneer of the looped, sampled, and synthed musical style chillwave, and chill it is. Chill, not soporific – Chaz throws in beats so sick that even the most whitebread audience will find a groove. Toro Y Moi’s January 2011 follow-up, Underneath the Pine, uses his chillwave past as the foundation for funky, folky, delight. The hazy electronics are still there, but he’s greatly reduced his reliance upon sampling and has matured into more complex songwriting. Underneath the Pine sees the world through an 8mm camera – or maybe that impression came about because of the music video for “New Beat“. It’s refreshing when an artist changes things up instead of becoming complacent – and all the more so when it brings a new high.

Cleveland, Ohio group Cloud Nothings delivers angsty lo-fi pop, done in a way that doesn’t grate at the nerves and make you want to smack the turmoiled teens on the side of the head. Think early demos from Weezer, Green Day, and the like. They just released their eponymous debut album on Carpark, where Toro is a label mate. The lo-fi is probably their saving grace, because seamless, expensive studio production would put them at risk of producing the sort of well-groomed rebellion that is so predominant in middle class teens with access to an Urban Outfitters. Thanks to their gritty passion, we predict that Cloud Nothings will be excellent live.

No less exciting (just a lot more local) is The Gold Party, an Athens electro-dance-pop group that immediately brings to mind a ménage à trois between Hot Chip, Depeche Mode and Muse. We’ve never seen them live, but we’re definitely going to wear our dancing shoes.

Doors 9 pm, tickets $10/$12 under 21. See you there!

(Allegra Yeley, UGA)