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The boys returned to their Midwest roots for Alopecia, hunkering down in Minneapolis's Third Ear studio and inducting a pair of venerable big guns into the band: Fog mastermind Andrew Broder and bassist Mark "Bear" Erickson. Throwing their samplers to the wind (mostly), Why? recorded live as a five-piece. By the time the core trio returned to Oakland (where Thee More Shallows' D. Kessler engineered a final session), they'd amassed their most immediate and cohesive batch of songs to date.

Throughout Alopecia, Why? further pushes the edges of its sound, mastering mood on the time-shifting "The Song of the Sad Assassin," going ghostly with Kessler on a textured death rattle called "Gnashville," and inflating the warped buoyancy of Elephant Eyelash via "Fatalist Palmistry." Likewise, Wolf has honed his poems, evidenced by "The Fall of Mr. Fifths"-- a twisted rap hinting at an inner Mr. Hyde--the sleepy existentialism of "Brook & Waxing," the oral illustration offered by "A Sky for Shoeing Horses Under" and the complex cadences found in "Twenty-Eight."

Before Alopecia is brought to its eerie end (the suicide-probing outro, "Exegesis") we're given one more offering of reverse rap braggadocio. "By Torpedo or Crohn's" grooves like a mid-'90s gangsta BBQ jam and peaks with a recurring line from Alopecia: "While I'm alive/I'll feel alive." It's a fitting final thought, even for an album as complex as this-- that the perfect antithesis to the blunt finality of death is nothing more than claiming the lifeblood that is already yours.

30-second MP3 excerpts:

The Vowels Pt. 2
Good Friday
These Few Presidents
The Hollows
Song Of The Sad Assassin
Gnashville
Fatalist Palmistry
The Fall Of Mr. Fifths
Brook & Waxing
A Sky For Shoeing Horses Under
Twenty-Eight
Simeon's Dilemma
By Torpedo Or Crohn's
Exegesis

If you have a recent version of iTunes software on your computer, clicking on the link immediately below should open the iTunes application and take you to that album's iTunes page-- where you can listen to samples and buy this album, or individual tracks:

Go to iTunes to browse downloads for Why? "Alopecia"

For a complete listing of Midheaven exclusive albums available for download from the iTunes Music Service and emusic, please visit the Midheaven Mailorder/Revolver USA Downloadables page.

Studio versions of these songs can be heard on Alopecia, Elephant Eyelash, and the Sanddollars EP.

Almost Live From Eli's Live Room was recorded to document the band's live arrangements for 2008 concerts, and sold on their recently-completed tour.

If you have a recent version of iTunes software on your computer, clicking on the link immediately below should open the iTunes application and take you to that album's iTunes page-- where you can listen to samples and buy this album, or individual tracks:

Go to iTunes to browse downloads for WHY? "Almost Live From Eli's Live Room"

For a complete listing of Midheaven exclusive albums available for download from the iTunes Music Service, emusic and Amazon MP3, please visit the Midheaven Mailorder/Revolver USA Downloadables page.

The boys returned to their Midwest roots for Alopecia, hunkering down in Minneapolis's Third Ear studio and inducting a pair of venerable big guns into the band: Fog mastermind Andrew Broder and bassist Mark "Bear" Erickson. Throwing their samplers to the wind (mostly), Why? recorded live as a five-piece. By the time the core trio returned to Oakland (where Thee More Shallows' D. Kessler engineered a final session), they'd amassed their most immediate and cohesive batch of songs to date.

Throughout Alopecia, Why? further pushes the edges of its sound, mastering mood on the time-shifting "The Song of the Sad Assassin," going ghostly with Kessler on a textured death rattle called "Gnashville," and inflating the warped buoyancy of Elephant Eyelash via "Fatalist Palmistry." Likewise, Wolf has honed his poems, evidenced by "The Fall of Mr. Fifths"-- a twisted rap hinting at an inner Mr. Hyde--the sleepy existentialism of "Brook & Waxing," the oral illustration offered by "A Sky for Shoeing Horses Under" and the complex cadences found in "Twenty-Eight."

Before Alopecia is brought to its eerie end (the suicide-probing outro, "Exegesis") we're given one more offering of reverse rap braggadocio. "By Torpedo or Crohn's" grooves like a mid-'90s gangsta BBQ jam and peaks with a recurring line from Alopecia: "While I'm alive/I'll feel alive." It's a fitting final thought, even for an album as complex as this-- that the perfect antithesis to the blunt finality of death is nothing more than claiming the lifeblood that is already yours.

30-second MP3 excerpts:

The Vowels Pt. 2
Good Friday
These Few Presidents
The Hollows
Song Of The Sad Assassin
Gnashville
Fatalist Palmistry
The Fall Of Mr. Fifths
Brook & Waxing
A Sky For Shoeing Horses Under
Twenty-Eight
Simeon's Dilemma
By Torpedo Or Crohn's
Exegesis

If you have a recent version of iTunes software on your computer, clicking on the link immediately below should open the iTunes application and take you to that album's iTunes page-- where you can listen to samples and buy this album, or individual tracks:

Go to iTunes to browse downloads for Why? "Alopecia"

For a complete listing of Midheaven exclusive albums available for download from the iTunes Music Service and emusic, please visit the Midheaven Mailorder/Revolver USA Downloadables page.

"Pick Fights" and "Deceived" are tidy, lyric-driven pieces that showcase Yoni's effortlessly rapped vocals, cold wit and keen eye for detail while the jangly gem "Dumb Hummer," is a wry take on military chic (camo gear and street-dwarfing Humvees) and essentially an essay on attempting to live conscientiously in the overdeveloped West. When the band-- tasteful and distinctive guitarist Matt Meldon, multi-instrumentalist Doug McDiarmid and jazz-inflected drummer Josiah Wolf-- settles into a contemplative acoustic moment, Yoni proposes his solution: idance... without numbered footprints.i"

why? grew up in Cincinnati playing kickball in the cul de sac and watching 8-bit Nintendo in his big brother's attic bedroom. The minor key melodies of religious music and the tight belt, tight-laced shoes of his soft-spoken middle childhood in part provide the impetus for why?'s candy-time-dissonant, singsong-suicide style. In addition to his membership in cLOUDDEAD and reaching quiet, why? has collaborated with Hood, Fog, boombip, jel and sole; he has toured the world twice, performed two Peel Sessions under the cLOUDDEAD moniker, and is admired by Boards of Canada, Mum, Stereolab, Danielson Famile, The Notwist and Mogwai. why?'s quirky production and infectious melodies are merely sugar coating for the contents of a young man with unbuttoned lips and a gut spitting words.

Picking up where why?'s well-received oaklandazulasylum left off, the early whitney ep maintains why?'s unique, off-kilter, dirty-drum, digital, dark folk constructed with samplers, guitars, keyboard and all kinds of found sounds. Over unique song structures why? delivers pretty melodies and catchy, sing-songy half-raps. The record starts out with the hair-raising title track (initially released on oaklandazulasylum) "early whitney," a sad song about all things being mortal. The rest of the side continues with a similar feel and theme. Just as original and sweet as his melodies are why's words. The tracks on Side A are introspective, moody and lonely dissections of the human condition, with memorable lines like "you should whistle when you walk past a graveyard and hide your face in your trench coat collar" on "Ladyfingers," whereas Side B is more topical with songs like "Darla," a whimsical vegan anthem of sorts, starring a hen named "Darla." "me on beer" ponderings class-ism, and "the crest" brings it all back home.

• Follow-up EP to his well received full length oaklandazulasylum
  
• one third of critically acclaimed cLOUDDEAD
  
• Front man for cult favorite reaching quiet
  
• Full world tour planned the same month of release
  
• File under hip hop W and rock W

  30-second RealAudio excerpts:

  Early Whitney
  Ladyfingerz
  Point Blank
  Darla
  Me on Beer
  The Crest

  If you have a recent version of iTunes software on your computer, clicking on the link below should open the iTunes application and take you to the iTunes Music Service page-- where you can listen to samples and buy this album, or individual tracks:

  why? "early whitney" (anticon)

  For a complete listing of Midheaven exclusive albums available for download from the iTunes Music service, please visit the Midheaven Mailorder/Revolver USA Downloadables page.

why? grew up in Cincinnati playing kickball in the cul de sac and watching 8-bit Nintendo in his big brother's attic bedroom. The minor key melodies of religious music and the tight belt, tight-laced shoes of his soft-spoken middle childhood in part provide the impetus for why?'s candy-time-dissonant, singsong-suicide style. In addition to his membership in cLOUDDEAD and reaching quiet, why? has collaborated with Hood, Fog, boombip, jel and sole; he has toured the world twice, performed two Peel Sessions under the cLOUDDEAD moniker, and is admired by Boards of Canada, Mum, Stereolab, Danielson Famile, The Notwist and Mogwai. why?'s quirky production and infectious melodies are merely sugar coating for the contents of a young man with unbuttoned lips and a gut spitting words.

Picking up where why?'s well-received oaklandazulasylum left off, the early whitney ep maintains why?'s unique, off-kilter, dirty-drum, digital, dark folk constructed with samplers, guitars, keyboard and all kinds of found sounds. Over unique song structures why? delivers pretty melodies and catchy, sing-songy half-raps. The record starts out with the hair-raising title track (initially released on oaklandazulasylum) "early whitney," a sad song about all things being mortal. The rest of the side continues with a similar feel and theme. Just as original and sweet as his melodies are why's words. The tracks on Side A are introspective, moody and lonely dissections of the human condition, with memorable lines like "you should whistle when you walk past a graveyard and hide your face in your trench coat collar" on "Ladyfingers," whereas Side B is more topical with songs like "Darla," a whimsical vegan anthem of sorts, starring a hen named "Darla." "me on beer" ponderings class-ism, and "the crest" brings it all back home.

• Follow-up EP to his well received full length oaklandazulasylum
  
• one third of critically acclaimed cLOUDDEAD
  
• Front man for cult favorite reaching quiet
  
• Full world tour planned the same month of release
  
• File under hip hop W and rock W

  30-second RealAudio excerpts:

  Early Whitney
  Ladyfingerz
  Point Blank
  Darla
  Me on Beer
  The Crest

  If you have a recent version of iTunes software on your computer, clicking on the link below should open the iTunes application and take you to the iTunes Music Service page-- where you can listen to samples and buy this album, or individual tracks:

  why? "early whitney" (anticon)

  For a complete listing of Midheaven exclusive albums available for download from the iTunes Music service, please visit the Midheaven Mailorder/Revolver USA Downloadables page.

Elephant Eyelash is a beautifully realized work, a smile-twisted opus of bright colors, dark corners and fearless moves by head architect Yoni Wolf (cLOUDDEAD, Reaching Quiet, Hymie's Basement). After six years of treating WHY? as a solo project, Wolf has fashioned WHY? into a full-fledged band. The Sanddollars EP, released in May '05, presents the group working through a short set of miniature oeuvres, but Elephant Eyelash dishes up the real deal: twelve gorgeously rendered tracks of jangly psych-rock, folk-hop and peculiar pop.

Whether inhabiting the persona of a lovelorn crooner or warpmouthed Dylanesque poet, self-deprecating, soft-singing shy guy or loudmouthed macho type, Wolf wraps unforgettable lyrical imagery around grooves powered by an arsenal of instruments: guitars, turntable, piano, glockenspiel, pedal steel, pots, pans and more.

Pavement, Neutral Milk Hotel, krautrock and dub are all channeled here, but the mix never gets too heady. Rather, it's Wolf's trademark delivery, half-smirk, half-grin, that reminds us that it's the inconsistencies that make life so damn addicting.

30-second MP3 excerpts:

Crushed Bones
Yo Yo Bye Bye
Rubber Traits
The Hoofs
Fall Saddles
Gemini (Birthday Song)
Waterfalls
Sand Dollars
Speach Bubbles
Whispers Into The Others
Act Five
Light Leaves

If you have a recent version of iTunes software on your computer, clicking on the link immediately below should open the iTunes application and take you to that album's iTunes page-- where you can listen to samples and buy this album, or individual tracks:

go to iTunes to browse downloads for why? "elephant eyelash" (anticon)

For a complete listing of Midheaven exclusive albums available for download from the iTunes Music service, please visit the Midheaven Mailorder/Revolver USA Downloadables page.

oaklandazulasylum, why?'s first official self-produced full-length release, is fourteen lonely art songs recorded over two years' time. With sharp focus and visceral lyrics set in decisive production, each song maintains individuality while positioned to fulfill its unique role in the record's sequence. why?'s rapped and crooned poem parts are a grief-like laugh with the western world, and through the eyeholes of a catchy candy song mask outpour the half-empty honests of a man in moods. The audio equivalent to the slideshow presentation of a clowncar crash, oaklandazulasylum is dirty drum digital dark folk catered to the raw sensibilities of hiphop in headphones.

• One third of the critically acclaimed cLOUDDEAD trio
  
• Frontman for cult favorite reaching quiet
  
• File under hiphop W and rock W

  30-second RealAudio excerpts:

  Ferriswheel
  Cold Lunch (Albert Brown Mortuary Dumpster Dive Remix)
  Afterschool America
  Our Neighbor's Daughter
  A Little Titanic
  Weak Moon
  Early Whitney
  Dream On Cortelyou
  Women Eye, "No."
  Dirty Glass
  Shirtless, Sheetless, and...
  Bad Entropy
  Seventeen
  Ape in Cage with Wire Cutters

  If you have a recent version of iTunes software on your computer, clicking on the link below should open the iTunes application and take you to the iTunes Music Service page-- where you can listen to samples and buy this album, or individual tracks:

  why? "oaklandazulasylum" (anticon)

  For a complete listing of Midheaven exclusive albums available for download from the iTunes Music service, please visit the Midheaven Mailorder/Revolver USA Downloadables page.

Alongside the poignantly morbid pop of the title track, which couples lines like "I want to...fuck gentle on a bed of nails" with clean, Brian Wilson-like "ooh-we-oohs," there are three new songs. The jangly gem "Dumb Hummer," a wry take on military chic (camo-gear and street-dwarfing Humvees), is essentially an essay on living conscientiously in the overdeveloped West. The other two songs, "Pick Fights" and "Deceived," are tidy, lyric-driven pieces that pair Yoni's effortlessly rapped vocals with cold wit and a keen eye for detail, showing yet again that he's always been more Dylan Thomas than Bob Dylan. The sharp wordplay and plain spoken tone are complimented beautifully by the band: multi-instrumentalist Doug McDiarmid's discreet, tender piano work, the tasteful and distinctive work of guitarist Matt Meldon and the decidedly jazz-inflected touch of drummer Josiah Wolf.

The CD also features a hilarious, faux-cheesy video for "Rubber Traits" directed by Ravi Zupa, a filmmaker who's collaborated in the past with both Sole and Themselves. The video deftly accentuates the lyrics and actually adds something to the music, a rare feat.

30-second MP3 excerpts:

Tattoo
Maya Gold
Moonshine
Reprise

If you have a recent version of iTunes software on your computer, clicking on the link immediately below should open the iTunes application and take you to that album's iTunes page-- where you can listen to samples and buy this album, or individual tracks:

go to iTunes to browse downloads for Why? "Rubber Traits"

For a complete listing of Midheaven exclusive albums available for download from the iTunes Music service, please visit the Midheaven Mailorder/Revolver USA Downloadables page.

• The preeminent project fronted by Yoni Wolf, the critically acclaimed artist behind side projects cLOUDDEAD and Hymie's Basement
  
• Has toured the world twice, including opening for Mum, Deerhoof and the like

  30-second MP3 excerpts:

  Miss Ohio's Nameless
  500 Fingernails
  Sick 2 Think
  Sanddollars
  Vice Principal
  Next Atlanta
  Pantone Cyan
  Mutant John

  If you have a recent version of iTunes software on your computer, clicking on the link immediately below should open the iTunes application and take you to that album's iTunes page-- where you can listen to samples and buy this album, or individual tracks:

  why? "sanddollars"

  For a complete listing of Midheaven exclusive albums available for download from the iTunes Music service, please visit the Midheaven Mailorder/Revolver USA Downloadables page.

The US release of "The Hollows" also boasts three exclusive B-sides (the European version will have three of its own). Filling out side A is a Dntel remix of an unreleased Alopecia track, "By Torpedo Or Crohn's," which finds Yoni barking up his most rap cadence in years atop Jimmy Tamborello's pulsing electronics very much in the vein of his James Figurine material.

Side B features friends covering older Why? material. First up is Xiu Xiu's unique and dancey electro take on "Yo Yo Bye Bye" from Elephant Eyelash. Closing out the four-song 12-inch is "Pre-teen Apocalyptic Film Acting," a medley of selected Why? material by Asthmatic Kitty recording artist Half-Handed Cloud.

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