Deciding which Why? album to post was a tough choice, but I'm gonna go with Alopecia. The reason it's such a tough call is that Why? has a slightly different sound on every record, and who the fuck knows which one you'd like. As one of the base members of the Anticon collective, Yoni Wolf (formerly known as Why?) has been involved in the avant-garde hip hop scene since 1998. He was one third of art-rap group cLOUDDEAD and later went on to produce solo material, first as a solo act and now teamed up with a band (now collectively known as Why?). The music they make is a very odd mix of indie, pop, and hip hop. Yoni's lyrics are often very personal, expounding on topics such as his fear of death, lost love, gay men fucking at a basketball court in Berlin, faking syphilis for pity, and plenty of other lyrics that will only ever make sense to him. The instrumentation in his band is also pretty interesting, his brother playing drums and xylophones/marimbas, Yoni vocalizing and playing auxillary percussion (extra toms, snare, tamborine, cymbals), and the other two gents playing a rotation of piano, guitar, bass, and any other noisemakers they can get on hand. The music isn't for everyone, but Alopecia is probably the best gateway as it catches them between the more hip hop influenced indie tunes from the previous album, Elephant Eyelash, and Alopecia's follow-up, Eskimo Snow, which seems to be a little more straight forward indie pop. Here is a little sample. If you dig it, get this record!
WHY? haven't you clicked this yet?
I really enjoyed this :]
ReplyDelete