cLOUDDEAD’s 2004 record Ten, signalled Why?, Doseone and Odd Nosdam’s desertion of hip hop proper to plough an experimental vein; lyrics that at first sound like a stream of consciousness, abstract imagery,post-beat poetry (to coin a phrase from Wire Magazine), symbolism, full of the sort of nonsense syllables that ‘The Rest is Noise’ author Alex Ross complimented Stephen Malkmus for. Combined with its method of delivery, over a hazy dirge of found sounds, archived recording, lo-fi beats and surprising melody, it became something challenging, confusing and sort of liberating. When things can so often seem so predictable, it’s always an indescribable pleasure when something hits from leftfield as hard as this, and if any genre was crying out for an innovative avant garde stream to realise some further potential, it was hip hop.
Ten indicated a new coherence to their previous sound, each refining their individual skills, and ‘Dead Dogs Two’ offered an emotive highpoint. Droning Organ, the sinister crackle of vinyl, and percussion reminiscent of Moondog, backs Doseone and Why? as they begin their half chant, half sung, rhymes, never afraid to loose the verbs. An ambient dusty vibe prevails, with the breakdown to the drum machine adding contrast and poignancy to slow clump of a Nosdam beat and uplifting melancholic melody, before the tune drifts off into vocal snippets and climax. It still retained some hip hop elements: the passing of the mic from line to line (and at one point word to word), the contrast of Doseone’s nasal inflection with Why?’s gentle singsong, and observational lyrics, but it’s connection with hip hop is increasingly tenuous. Read the rest of this entry »
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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