Before Why?'s sold-out show at LPR on 9/26 they sat down with John Norris in our Gallery Bar for an interview. Check out part 1 of the interview below and head to VentVox for the rest (which includes live performances).
Showing posts with label why. Show all posts
Showing posts with label why. Show all posts
Friday, October 9, 2009
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Karl Blau covers WHY?
WHY? played a sold-out show at LPR on Saturday, September 26th. Head over to Pitchfork to check out Karl Blau's cover of their song, "This Blackest Purse".
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
WHY's Yoni Wolf Covers Pavement's "Shoot the Singer (1 Sick Verse)"
Click here to listen to WHY's Yoni Wolf covers Pavement's "Shoot the Singer (1 Sick Verse)."
WHY will be performing at LPR on September 26.
WHY will be performing at LPR on September 26.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Watch and Listen: WHY? Video and Mp3
WHY? will be performing at LPR on September 26.
MP3: "This Blackest Purse" (Download it at rcrdlbl.com)
VIDEO: "Eskimo Snow" (Live on the Take Away Shows)
A year and a half after releasing the acclaimed Alopecia LP, WHY? returns with their fourth album, Eskimo Snow. The two records are each other's perfect foil: While last year's release found Yoni Wolf and the gang delivering a tight set of intricate rhymes, live loops, slurred hooks and acerbic wit, Eskimo Snow offers a sung, sobering take on mortality that unfurls in lush waves of Americana and pop-infused psych-folk. Pre-mixed in Nashville by Lambchop's Mark Nevers (Silver Jews, Bonnie Prince Billy, Calexico) and worked over by Alopecia engineer Eli Crews, this album is WHY?'s most live-sounding yet - a shadowy and sprawling piece as intimate in subject matter as it is handsome in timbre.
WHY? actually recorded Eskimo Snow at the same time as Alopecia, at Minneapolis' Third Ear studio, with Fog's Andrew Broder and Mark Erickson rounding out a live quintet. The vision for two separate albums emerged on a snowed-in night after a hot toddy or two. If Alopecia, however inexplicably, maintains a summery tone, then Eskimo Snow captures the bite and resignation associated with the Midwestern winters that these Cincinnati boys grew up with.
"These Hands" opens the album up rich and with deliberate pacing, Doug matching Yoni word-for-word (you'll find no vocal overdubs here) and the rhythm section operating under heavy reverb. Vibraphone likewise duets with piano, windy wordless vocals fly around the atmosphere, and wet footsteps soon carry us to "January Twenty Something." Here, you're in the room with WHY?, listening to the bass rattle the drums and the drums rattle the vibes. Amid this folksy grandness, the whole crew sings for the chorus, bending their harmony into a gorgeously warped drawl. Next, "Against Me" brings the album's brightest moment yet: a crescendo of bells that eventually dips into an aural whirlpool while Yoni spins picturesque observations like a countrified Dylan.
Across Eskimo Snow, Yoni weighs his ability to create a legacy against life's transience. On the luxe, pedal-steel-drenched "Even The Good Wood Gone," he transposes himself with a mummy in a museum, begging, "No flash photography," drawing a line from the dubious promise of fame to the brittleness of antiquity. For "Into The Shadows Of My Embrace," he explores sex and decay while the track vacillates between a live wall-of-sound and spare church organ passages. "One Rose" is gentler, sporting a Western stride and dark piano hits whose echoing blackness mimics Yoni's wistful poems. Toward the song's end, the chorus of Alopecia's "A Sky For Shoeing Horses Under" makes a stormy reprise.
Most impressively, this record presents a band uninhibited, but evermore accomplished at imbuing sound with mood. "On Rose Walk, Insomniac" rolls forth on a tempestuous din, Josiah drumming hard through the chorus, where Yoni's voice sounds like its running through a Leslie speaker. "Berkeley By Hearseback" comes in so soft, the guitar tones feel like waves of grain next to the splashy cymbals and that Jim James-worthy cowboy croon ricocheting through the background. "This Blackest Purse" weaves a melancholy that shirks dourness for a curious smile. And when the titular song brings the album to a hushed close, Eskimo Snow's place in the narrative becomes clear. Rather than spit at death or threaten it with suicide, Yoni stops bucking against the inevitable. In the process, the band discovers a rich place that the rest of us can happily live within.
MP3: "This Blackest Purse" (Download it at rcrdlbl.com)
VIDEO: "Eskimo Snow" (Live on the Take Away Shows)
A year and a half after releasing the acclaimed Alopecia LP, WHY? returns with their fourth album, Eskimo Snow. The two records are each other's perfect foil: While last year's release found Yoni Wolf and the gang delivering a tight set of intricate rhymes, live loops, slurred hooks and acerbic wit, Eskimo Snow offers a sung, sobering take on mortality that unfurls in lush waves of Americana and pop-infused psych-folk. Pre-mixed in Nashville by Lambchop's Mark Nevers (Silver Jews, Bonnie Prince Billy, Calexico) and worked over by Alopecia engineer Eli Crews, this album is WHY?'s most live-sounding yet - a shadowy and sprawling piece as intimate in subject matter as it is handsome in timbre.
WHY? actually recorded Eskimo Snow at the same time as Alopecia, at Minneapolis' Third Ear studio, with Fog's Andrew Broder and Mark Erickson rounding out a live quintet. The vision for two separate albums emerged on a snowed-in night after a hot toddy or two. If Alopecia, however inexplicably, maintains a summery tone, then Eskimo Snow captures the bite and resignation associated with the Midwestern winters that these Cincinnati boys grew up with.
"These Hands" opens the album up rich and with deliberate pacing, Doug matching Yoni word-for-word (you'll find no vocal overdubs here) and the rhythm section operating under heavy reverb. Vibraphone likewise duets with piano, windy wordless vocals fly around the atmosphere, and wet footsteps soon carry us to "January Twenty Something." Here, you're in the room with WHY?, listening to the bass rattle the drums and the drums rattle the vibes. Amid this folksy grandness, the whole crew sings for the chorus, bending their harmony into a gorgeously warped drawl. Next, "Against Me" brings the album's brightest moment yet: a crescendo of bells that eventually dips into an aural whirlpool while Yoni spins picturesque observations like a countrified Dylan.
Across Eskimo Snow, Yoni weighs his ability to create a legacy against life's transience. On the luxe, pedal-steel-drenched "Even The Good Wood Gone," he transposes himself with a mummy in a museum, begging, "No flash photography," drawing a line from the dubious promise of fame to the brittleness of antiquity. For "Into The Shadows Of My Embrace," he explores sex and decay while the track vacillates between a live wall-of-sound and spare church organ passages. "One Rose" is gentler, sporting a Western stride and dark piano hits whose echoing blackness mimics Yoni's wistful poems. Toward the song's end, the chorus of Alopecia's "A Sky For Shoeing Horses Under" makes a stormy reprise.
Most impressively, this record presents a band uninhibited, but evermore accomplished at imbuing sound with mood. "On Rose Walk, Insomniac" rolls forth on a tempestuous din, Josiah drumming hard through the chorus, where Yoni's voice sounds like its running through a Leslie speaker. "Berkeley By Hearseback" comes in so soft, the guitar tones feel like waves of grain next to the splashy cymbals and that Jim James-worthy cowboy croon ricocheting through the background. "This Blackest Purse" weaves a melancholy that shirks dourness for a curious smile. And when the titular song brings the album to a hushed close, Eskimo Snow's place in the narrative becomes clear. Rather than spit at death or threaten it with suicide, Yoni stops bucking against the inevitable. In the process, the band discovers a rich place that the rest of us can happily live within.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Just Announced: Why? w/ Owen Weaver and Flexible Music
ON SALE TUESDAY AT NOON. MEMBERS CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT HOW TO ORDER PRE-SALE TICKETS.
Why?
WHY? For what? Which reason, cause or purpose? What unnamed goal?
In abstract, WHY? is the process of adapting to the somehow simple business of existing. WHY? is the searching for something clearly unreachable, with hopes of finding small significance along the way. The attempt to understand what’s really going on by observing, neither by telescope nor microscope, but by naked eye, the intimate details in the most mundane of life’s happenings. The attempt to describe the gist of the feeling of the tiniest modicum of The Great Universal Unutterable Joke we are all always not laughing at—except when we are. WHY? is living out the set-up of that old gag over and over, until we finally reach a punch-line. Or we die and we don't.
WHY? is, most often, a trio of handsome Midwestern men with a shared past, present and future. Today, they fiddle around with skins, strings and bells through microphones attached to tape, presenting their “findings” to the waiting world. In an earlier decade they were all born in Cincinnati. And in the time in between, much did happen. Yoni Wolf, for instance, grew up the second son to an art book editor and a rabbi. He got his start recording bad poems and sloppy beats on the family synagogue’s forgotten 4-track. In junior high he discovered hip-hop; in art school he learned how to drop out. His brother Josiah played drums at worship service as a tot, dominated Concert Band as a teen, and fell in love with the compositions of Thelonious Monk on his way to University of Cincinnati’s music conservatory. Doug McDiarmid would eventually get expelled from UoC for carrying a stun gun, but was first conceived by two French teachers and taught piano while in kindergarten. He went to high school with the Wolfs, where he played in Steve Miller cover bands. In various permutations together and with other now-notables (Dose One, Odd Nosdam, Mr. Dibbs, Slug), these three created and/or contributed to a number of freewheeling rap and lo-fi bedroom-rock related projects, some still unexcavated: Miss Ohio’s Nameless, Apogee, Greenthink, Reaching Quiet, and the now seminal cLOUDDEAD. Their wildest dreams were achieved when they relocated to the West to make pop-inflected psychedelic folk-hop.
Owen Weaver
Growing up playing in Rock Bands, Owen Weaver began his formal percussion training at the University of Minnesota in 2001 studying with Fernando Meza and Earl Yowell. As a soloist committed to bringing classical music to non-academic settings, he has performed in the Marimba Underground concert series in Minneapolis as well the New York based Wordless Music Series. An active chamber musician, he performs with Austin new music group PicNacht as well as flute/percussion duo Undertow. Mr. Weaver collaborated with Grammy-nominated Conspirare: A Company of Voices for a television special aired nationally on PBS, the recording of which was released on the Harmonia Mundi label. As an orchestral musician he is serves as principal timpanist of the Round Rock Symphony and has made appearances with the Austin Symphony, the Austin City Brass Ensemble, the Austin Singers, and the Texas Choral Consort. In 2009 he received a master’s degree from the University of Texas Butler School of Music under the tutelage of Tom Burritt and Tony Edwards.
Flexible Music
With an instrumentation that blurs the line between jazz, rock and classical music, Flexible Music was inspired by Dutch composer Louis Andriessen's Hout for saxophone, guitar, piano and percussion. Since 2003, the group has commissioned over 30 pieces including new works by Nico Muhly, Orianna Webb, Vineet Shende, John Link, Ryan Streber, Mikel Kuehn, Andrew Waggoner, Steve Ricks, Nizan Leibovich, Ethan Wickman, Ross Bauer, Carl Schimmel, Seung-Ah Oh, and Adam B. Silverman.
Flexible Music looks forward to engagements in fall of 2010 on the Macau International Music Festival in China and at the University of Montreal. This season's concerts have included performances at Syracuse University, Bowling Green State University's Mid-American Festival of New Music, Evolution Music Series (Baltimore), and Chamber Music Now (Philadelphia), and masterclasses at the Peabody Institute of Music and American University. Some of the ensemble's past concerts and residencies include Brigham Young University, University of Utah, Manhattan School of Music, Cleveland Institute of Music, William Paterson University, and The Stone (NYC). Flexible Music's debut cd, FM, was released by New Focus Recordings in March 2009. "This was my first encounter with Flexible Music, but it certainly won't be my last. Each player was estimable in his or her own right; together, they provided a broad canvas upon which tonight's composers could unfurl their imaginations.” Steve Smith, Night after Night Blog (Music Reviewer for NY Times and Time Out NY)
More information here.
Why?
WHY? For what? Which reason, cause or purpose? What unnamed goal?
In abstract, WHY? is the process of adapting to the somehow simple business of existing. WHY? is the searching for something clearly unreachable, with hopes of finding small significance along the way. The attempt to understand what’s really going on by observing, neither by telescope nor microscope, but by naked eye, the intimate details in the most mundane of life’s happenings. The attempt to describe the gist of the feeling of the tiniest modicum of The Great Universal Unutterable Joke we are all always not laughing at—except when we are. WHY? is living out the set-up of that old gag over and over, until we finally reach a punch-line. Or we die and we don't.
WHY? is, most often, a trio of handsome Midwestern men with a shared past, present and future. Today, they fiddle around with skins, strings and bells through microphones attached to tape, presenting their “findings” to the waiting world. In an earlier decade they were all born in Cincinnati. And in the time in between, much did happen. Yoni Wolf, for instance, grew up the second son to an art book editor and a rabbi. He got his start recording bad poems and sloppy beats on the family synagogue’s forgotten 4-track. In junior high he discovered hip-hop; in art school he learned how to drop out. His brother Josiah played drums at worship service as a tot, dominated Concert Band as a teen, and fell in love with the compositions of Thelonious Monk on his way to University of Cincinnati’s music conservatory. Doug McDiarmid would eventually get expelled from UoC for carrying a stun gun, but was first conceived by two French teachers and taught piano while in kindergarten. He went to high school with the Wolfs, where he played in Steve Miller cover bands. In various permutations together and with other now-notables (Dose One, Odd Nosdam, Mr. Dibbs, Slug), these three created and/or contributed to a number of freewheeling rap and lo-fi bedroom-rock related projects, some still unexcavated: Miss Ohio’s Nameless, Apogee, Greenthink, Reaching Quiet, and the now seminal cLOUDDEAD. Their wildest dreams were achieved when they relocated to the West to make pop-inflected psychedelic folk-hop.
Owen Weaver
Growing up playing in Rock Bands, Owen Weaver began his formal percussion training at the University of Minnesota in 2001 studying with Fernando Meza and Earl Yowell. As a soloist committed to bringing classical music to non-academic settings, he has performed in the Marimba Underground concert series in Minneapolis as well the New York based Wordless Music Series. An active chamber musician, he performs with Austin new music group PicNacht as well as flute/percussion duo Undertow. Mr. Weaver collaborated with Grammy-nominated Conspirare: A Company of Voices for a television special aired nationally on PBS, the recording of which was released on the Harmonia Mundi label. As an orchestral musician he is serves as principal timpanist of the Round Rock Symphony and has made appearances with the Austin Symphony, the Austin City Brass Ensemble, the Austin Singers, and the Texas Choral Consort. In 2009 he received a master’s degree from the University of Texas Butler School of Music under the tutelage of Tom Burritt and Tony Edwards.
Flexible Music
With an instrumentation that blurs the line between jazz, rock and classical music, Flexible Music was inspired by Dutch composer Louis Andriessen's Hout for saxophone, guitar, piano and percussion. Since 2003, the group has commissioned over 30 pieces including new works by Nico Muhly, Orianna Webb, Vineet Shende, John Link, Ryan Streber, Mikel Kuehn, Andrew Waggoner, Steve Ricks, Nizan Leibovich, Ethan Wickman, Ross Bauer, Carl Schimmel, Seung-Ah Oh, and Adam B. Silverman.
Flexible Music looks forward to engagements in fall of 2010 on the Macau International Music Festival in China and at the University of Montreal. This season's concerts have included performances at Syracuse University, Bowling Green State University's Mid-American Festival of New Music, Evolution Music Series (Baltimore), and Chamber Music Now (Philadelphia), and masterclasses at the Peabody Institute of Music and American University. Some of the ensemble's past concerts and residencies include Brigham Young University, University of Utah, Manhattan School of Music, Cleveland Institute of Music, William Paterson University, and The Stone (NYC). Flexible Music's debut cd, FM, was released by New Focus Recordings in March 2009. "This was my first encounter with Flexible Music, but it certainly won't be my last. Each player was estimable in his or her own right; together, they provided a broad canvas upon which tonight's composers could unfurl their imaginations.” Steve Smith, Night after Night Blog (Music Reviewer for NY Times and Time Out NY)
More information here.
WHY? to Perform at LPR (Advanced Tickets for Members)
WHY? will be performing at LPR. Members can get pre-sale tickets by e-mailing members@lprnyc.com.
WHY? is, most often, a trio of handsome Midwestern men with a shared past, present and future. Today, they fiddle around with skins, strings and bells through microphones attached to tape, presenting their “findings” to the waiting world. In an earlier decade they were all born in Cincinnati. And in the time in between, much did happen. Yoni Wolf, for instance, grew up the second son to an art book editor and a rabbi. He got his start recording bad poems and sloppy beats on the family synagogue’s forgotten 4-track. In junior high he discovered hip-hop; in art school he learned how to drop out. His brother Josiah played drums at worship service as a tot, dominated Concert Band as a teen, and fell in love with the compositions of Thelonious Monk on his way to University of Cincinnati’s music conservatory. Doug McDiarmid would eventually get expelled from UoC for carrying a stun gun, but was first conceived by two French teachers and taught piano while in kindergarten. He went to high school with the Wolfs, where he played in Steve Miller cover bands. In various permutations together and with other now-notables (Dose One, Odd Nosdam, Mr. Dibbs, Slug), these three created and/or contributed to a number of freewheeling rap and lo-fi bedroom-rock related projects, some still unexcavated: Miss Ohio’s Nameless, Apogee, Greenthink, Reaching Quiet, and the now seminal cLOUDDEAD. Their wildest dreams were achieved when they relocated to the West to make pop-inflected psychedelic folk-hop.
WHY? is, most often, a trio of handsome Midwestern men with a shared past, present and future. Today, they fiddle around with skins, strings and bells through microphones attached to tape, presenting their “findings” to the waiting world. In an earlier decade they were all born in Cincinnati. And in the time in between, much did happen. Yoni Wolf, for instance, grew up the second son to an art book editor and a rabbi. He got his start recording bad poems and sloppy beats on the family synagogue’s forgotten 4-track. In junior high he discovered hip-hop; in art school he learned how to drop out. His brother Josiah played drums at worship service as a tot, dominated Concert Band as a teen, and fell in love with the compositions of Thelonious Monk on his way to University of Cincinnati’s music conservatory. Doug McDiarmid would eventually get expelled from UoC for carrying a stun gun, but was first conceived by two French teachers and taught piano while in kindergarten. He went to high school with the Wolfs, where he played in Steve Miller cover bands. In various permutations together and with other now-notables (Dose One, Odd Nosdam, Mr. Dibbs, Slug), these three created and/or contributed to a number of freewheeling rap and lo-fi bedroom-rock related projects, some still unexcavated: Miss Ohio’s Nameless, Apogee, Greenthink, Reaching Quiet, and the now seminal cLOUDDEAD. Their wildest dreams were achieved when they relocated to the West to make pop-inflected psychedelic folk-hop.
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