George McGovern’s campaign manager, Frank Mankiewicz, famously said that Hunter S. Thompson’s chronicle of the ‘72 US election was the “least accurate, but most factual” account. I think much the same could be attributed to the lyrics delivered by Yoni Wolf of Why? on the basis of his recent output. On ‘This Blackest Purse’ Wolf sets out his own mission statement of sorts; “I want to speak at an intimate decibel/ with the precision of an infinite decimal/ to listen up and send back a true echo/ of something forever felt but never heard/ I want that sharpened steel of truth in every word”.
The lyrics of Why? have always been something worth dissecting, acting as both the distinguishing factor between any comparable act and the singular element that unites his discography from his time as a solo artist, through his collaborations, cLOUDDEAD, and the current incarnation of Why? as a fully formed band. The topics here remain largely the same; the full contents of his thoughts on display as Yoni dissects death, sex and his own anxieties at every turn. He is his own therapist, the language of self-analysis pouring out every song. The albums opening line, “I wear the customary clothes of my time/ like Jesus did with no reason not to die” ensures you are instantly aware the lyrics will continue where they left off on Alopecia, a stream of Jungian psychoanalysis and border-line perversion (“and I never got a name for my shady compulsion”) that could be easily mistaken for narcissism (”will I gain weight in later life?”).
Wolf again shows signs of the sort of self awareness rarely found in popular music and couples this with a new self-referential streak. ‘This Blackest Purse’ provides the most obvious example, opening with the lines “I’m not who, with my eyes, I claim to be/ I’ve only cradled death in my own ending flesh from far off and abstracted lit/ candlewick flickering”, a reference to the most prevalent topic on Alopecia that was at the forefront of tracks like ‘Song of the Sad Assassin’ with its first person account of lifting a body out of the water, and signals the beginning of a differentiation between the person or persona and the doctrine he has set himself. His embellishment is in the quest for ‘truth in every word’.
Eskimo Snow is made up of recordings taken from the same sessions as Alopecia, separated for the sake of coherence, so perhaps it is no surprise to hear “looks like a sky for shoeing horses under” on the refrain to ‘One Rose’, or his calls of “no flash photography” on ‘Even The Good Wood Gone’, taking you back to the same train of thought first heard on ‘Sick 2 Think’ from the Sanddollars EP.
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The online music and film website Tiny Mix Tapes has put out its first release, a compilation which is admirably committing all of its profits to the International Rescue Committee for use in Darfur. They make clear that this is not a political statement on the situation in Sudan, but a record for you to enjoy while raising funding for humanitarian aid. The website itself is run on a largely voluntary basis with a huge volume of writers, reviewing new music and films, while focusing heavily on the American underground and adopting a fanzine-style approach. The release of the record itself is therefore something of a triumph for the website.
Charity records are invariably to be avoided, but Dark Was the Night, released earlier in the year, was both artistically and commercially a huge success, as well as offering a succinct who’s who collection of American indie. In addition to containing a great many exceptional songs, it managed to maintain a consistency that few (if any) previous compilations featuring such a wide range of artists had been able to do; these songs sounded like they actually belonged together. Tiny Mix Tapes Vol. 1 Darfur aims to occupy a very different generic space, and much like the website that spawned it, prefers mostly experimental artists with something of a cult following. The choice of contributors speaks for itself. Xiu Xiu, Mount Eerie, Why?, Frog Eyes, Dan Deacon. Perhaps what unites this artists is that they don’t quite fit with any established sound or scene: these are outsiders, furrowing their own paths.
As the eerie notes of Jim O’Rouke’s somewhat avant-garde and drifting ‘Seven Stars’ segue-way into the synths and rolling drums of Balroynigress’ melancholy offering ‘Dress the Ship in Black’, it’s already apparent that Tiny Mix Tapes Vol. 1 Darfur is not your average charity record. Frog Eyes’ acoustic version of ‘Bushels’ is the particular standout from the first side, with Carey Mercer‘s distinctive and urgent voice carrying the song with hypnotic skill. He lapses into occasional yelps and his delivery is never what you expect it to be, as if he’s unable to be control himself or be reigned in – it’s nearly always captivating.
Why? give you a taster of their follow up to the incredible Alopecia with a ‘sock hop’ version of the title track from forthcoming album Eskimo Snow. It sounds a lot more optimistic than their previous work, musically/formally at least, while the lyrics still seem preoccupied with the same themes of death and neurosis that recur throughout all of lyricist Yoni Wolf’s work. However, it is an all too brief and perhaps slightly underwhelming contribution, though my expectations may be too high on the back of songs as good as ‘The Hollows’ or ‘Simeon’s Dilemma’. The second side then introduces Mount Eerie and Wooden Wand’s gentle ‘No Stranger’, which both works and feels apt given the cause with its chorus of ‘no stranger to death’.
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