Why?

[u2popmofo]

You can listen to and download a new track from the upcoming album, 'Eskimo Snow', here:

Pitchfork: Premiere: WHY?: "This Blackest Purse"

I've only heard it once, but I like it so far!

 

[If you shout...]

This song is stunning. Holy fuck...!

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

That song does sound very nice.

 

[If you shout...]

No foolin', people--in spite of the fact that Wolf is still cringe-worthily "singing," rather than just writing, this song works wonders. And when he just talks, he's tolerable. You have to hear this track. Absolutely incredible.

 

[onebloodonelife]

Eskimo Snow leaked in its entirety today. It's way, way, way different than Alopecia, but it's fucking phenomenal. There's essentially zero hip-hop on here, which is a bit of a bummer to me, but like I said, it's awesome, so I'll get over that quick. It's interesting to think of the two as related, though I did read both albums were recorded at the same sessions in Minneapolis in 2007, so it makes sense. There's some nice thematic continuity in the lyrics as well. The opening track is "These Hands," and if you've heard "This Blackest Purse," you'll know that the phrase 'these hands' is fairly prominent throughout.

This all comes at a fantastic time for me, since I've been spinning "By Torpedo or Crohn's" A LOT again. It helps that he's talking about Crohn's disease in that song, which I have, so I relate with it quite a bit...cause I've unfortunately been in a lot of the situations he describes, and the last 40 seconds or so, when he says "I can decide while I'm alive I'll feel alive and what's next I guess I'll know when I've gotten there" are simply sublime.

Oh, and Scumbo, I finally searched for a related thread before posting in the random music thread. This is a fucking monumental day.

 

[u2popmofo]

Oh, and Scumbo, I finally searched for a related thread before posting in the random music thread. This is a fucking monumental day.

I will not have to start a forum wide argument tonight!

I am jealous of your early listenings. I assume they'll stream it somewhere early like the did the last one though, so I have a feeling I'll hear it soon enough.

 

[onebloodonelife]

You can save your rage for another night. I'm sure I'll screw something up again soon enough.

If you wouldn't be so damn principled, you wouldn't have to be jealous. But, yeah, hopefully they will, especially now that it's leaked anyway; it's beneficial to them to just stream it.

 

[u2popmofo]

In honor of your recent interesting in Why?, I've made an avatar change. Also, I've been meaning to post this video for ages, but never have. This has possibly become one of my all time favorite videos in a matter of months. Impossible for me to watch it without becoming happy. This woman is possibly the coolest person alive.

YouTube - Why? - "Dumb Hummer"

 

[onebloodonelife]

Nice, I dig it.

That woman's awesome, pure awesome.

And, have you seen these?

09-24 Cincinnati, OH - Northside Tavern *
09-26 New York, NY - Le Poisson Rouge +
10-01 Cambridge, MA - Middle East #%
10-02 Philadelphia, PA - First Unitarian Church #%
10-03 Pittsburgh, PA - William Pitt Union #%
10-04 Ann Arbor, MI - The Blind Pig #%
10-05 Chicago, IL - Bottom Lounge #%
10-06 Madison, WI - UW Madison Terrace #%
10-07 Minneapolis, MN - Triple Rock #%
10-09 Denver, CO - Bluebird #%
10-10 Salt Lake City, UT - In The Venue #%
10-13 Annacortes, WA - Department of Safety &$
10-14 Seattle, WA - The Vera Project &$
10-15 Portland, OR - Wonder Ballroom &$
10-17 San Francisco, CA - Great American Music Hall *%$
10-20 Los Angeles, CA - Echoplex *%
10-23 Phoenix, AZ - Modified Arts *%
10-24 Tucson, AZ - Club Congress *%
10-26 Denton, TX - Hailey's *%
10-28 Birmingham, AL - Bottletree *%
10-29 Asheville, NC - Grey Eagle *%
10-30 Carrboro, NC - Cat's Cradle *%
10-31 Atlanta, GA - Lenny's %^@
11-02 Orlando, FL - The Social %!
11-03 Gainesville, FL - Common Grounds %!
11-04 Tallahassee, FL - Club Downunder %!
11-06 Baton Rouge, LA - Spanish Moon %~
11-07 Houston, TX - Walter's on Washington %~
11-08 Austin, TX - Fun Fun Fun Fest
11-10 Lawrence, KS - Jackpot Music Hall %~
11-11 St. Louis, MO - Firebird %~
11-13 Bloomington, IN - Rhino's Youth Center ~

* with Serengeti and Polyphonic
# with Dark Dark Dark
% with AU
& with No Kids
$ with Mount Eerie
^ with Jemina Pearl
@ with Islands
! with James Husband
~ with The Moore Brothers
+ with Owen Weaver With Flexible Music

 

[u2popmofo]

Niiiiice. I should be back from Muse/U2 in Atlanta by then, so I should be able to see them again.

 

[onebloodonelife]

Yep, the Minneapolis show is the day after my birfday, so I'll definitely be hitting that one up. Plus, I didn't go see them last spring, like I said I would. How are they live?

 

[u2popmofo]

Watching each band member play 3 or 4 different instruments each is quite the thing to see. You can see some awesome xylophone + drums at the same time work here:

YouTube - Why? - A Sky For Shoeing Horses Under (LIVE!)

I thought they sounded considerably better than they do in the above video when I saw them though.

 

[onebloodonelife]

Alright, that's sick. Watching percussionists go nuts is always one of my favorite parts of shows. Definitely looks like it'd be worth my $15 to go check 'em out.

 

[LemonMelon]

Umm...wow, this is not what I was expecting at all. Lovely little record, but it really caught me off guard, and the vocals are pretty lousy. I miss the rapping, but I'll adjust. The songwriting is surprisingly strong.

 

[If you shout...]

Read this on another board. Hilarious:

so, last night: i was stoned and riding the bus through one of the poorest, most rundown neighborhoods in this city and i decided to put this album on. i thought that it might be a bit of a downer considering my intoxication. and the fact that i was heading home to scrub up before seeing a ladyfriend. and i was shocked at how fucking solid this album sounded. especially considering how stoned i was. the arrangements here are really complicated and layered. plus, even though the songs are a little more straightforward, they're still really well built.

anyhow, a couple of songs in and i realized why i love this album so much, even though it's a huge departure. this album kind of sounds like all the stuff i loved when i was in seventh grade, if it was all thrown in a blender together. i mean, this sounds as close to an being there and whatever and ever amen hybrid as exists in this world. even vocally, yoni sounds like the midpoint between ben folds and jeff tweedy. plus, similar kind of 70's am influences. especially on into the shadows of my embrace.

i got off the bus right around the point that song started. and as i was walking home (being generally fucked up) i kinda felt like i had to take a shit. and then being stoned i started to get really worried that maybe i lost control of my bowels and did shit myself. and then on that song the line "so i guess it's like smoking and walking at the same time" came up, and i was like, i'm so happy to get so stoned that i'm afraid of shitting myself. life is good.

i didn't shit myself, by the way. but it was like the album fit my state at that point perfectly. and so does the album, for this point in my life. i don't care about some of the clunky lyrics. this is probably my aoy at this point. this and sunset rubdown and the dream and phoenix and jj and julie doiron and let's wrestle. but whatever. i'll take eskimo snow over any of those right now.

 

[u2popmofo]

Sadly, he still described why he feels the way he does about the album better than many professional critics. I want more "I'm worried I'm going to crap my pants while listening to an album" reviews.

 

[mikal]

Umm...wow, this is not what I was expecting at all. Lovely little record, but it really caught me off guard, and the vocals are pretty lousy. I miss the rapping, but I'll adjust. The songwriting is surprisingly strong.

yep. i really enjoyed it too.

 

[powerhour24]

OK, I haven't listened yet, but this is perhaps the worst band name ever. And that means it tops 'Harmonica Lewinsky'.

 

[onebloodonelife]

Apparently it used to be Yoni Wolf's graffiti tag. Better than something silly like U2...

 

[GirlsAloudFan]

I think it's a cool band name. Still have only heard like 2 tracks by these guys. Liked 'em both. I need to do something about that.

 

[onebloodonelife]

I like it quite a bit too. Then again, I usually don't get too hung up on band names either. You should definitely check more of their stuff out though. It didn't resonate with me until all of a sudden one day, and now Wolf's stories have got me in a vice grip. He's weirdly fascinating and engrossing to listen to.

 

[u2popmofo]

I like it quite a bit too. Then again, I usually don't get too hung up on band names either.

Same here. At the end of the day, they're all pretty silly, who cares?

Elephant Eyelash is a pretty good album too, everyone. Unless you're going to steal it, then it sucks.

 

[onebloodonelife]

Same here. At the end of the day, they're all pretty silly, who cares?

Elephant Eyelash is a pretty good album too, everyone. Unless you're going to steal it, then it sucks.

I'd never thought about it that way, but yeah, they really are.

Listening to it now. A line deemed itself worthy of being my Facebook status already, so there's that. Of course, a Why? line has been up as my status quite a few times over the past couple weeks, so that's not terribly new I guess.

One thing that I like a lot about this band is that each of their albums sounds fairly different. There's always Wolf's sing-song voice sitting somewhere between rapping and singing, but I dig that the music behind him always has its own vibe that's coherent throughout each record. Plus, at least with Alopecia and Eskimo Snow, there's lyrical continuity and referencing to itself/other lines within the albums, which I'm always a sucker for. I could probably go on for longer, but I'll spare you all. (If you can't tell, I'm itching to get back to analyzing some pop music in classes again )

 

[u2popmofo]

There's always Wolf's sing-song voice sitting somewhere between rapping and singing, but I dig that the music behind him always has its own vibe that's coherent throughout each record. Plus, at least with Alopecia and Eskimo Snow, there's lyrical continuity and referencing to itself/other lines within the albums, which I'm always a sucker for. I could probably go on for longer, but I'll spare you all. (If you can't tell, I'm itching to get back to analyzing some pop music in classes again )

Agreed!

I really like the repeating lines ("That's what the ghost of someone's dad might say" for example) and themes in Alopecia. I just caught another repeating line I'd never noticed before a few weeks ago from the album, but I've already forgotten what it was....

One of these days I really should do one of those "favorite lines from each song" posts I said I'd do for Alopecia last year and never did. So many great lines.

 

[onebloodonelife]

Agreed!

I really like the repeating lines ("That's what the ghost of someone's dad might say" for example) and themes in Alopecia. I just caught another repeating line I'd never noticed before a few weeks ago from the album, but I've already forgotten what it was....

One of these days I really should do one of those "favorite lines from each song" posts I said I'd do for Alopecia last year and never did. So many great lines.

Another of my favorites is: "like half a proud horse downbrook I hear somebody's babbling I mistook for a cavalry whispering victory," which, coming after both "Brook & Waxing" and "A Sky for Shoeing Horses Under," is a bit of fun, but fairly dense wordplay that references the titles of both songs. And then there's: "I can decide while I'm alive I'll feel alive and what's next I guess I'll know when I've gotten there." Along with being one of my favorite lines on Alopecia period, it's cool how it shows up in "Brook & Waxing," and then again in "By Torpedo or Crohn's."

Yeah, that's what usually happens to me too. I'll catch it as I'm sort of within the mentality of the record, but once I'm not listening to it anymore, I tend to forget the minute details like repeating lines or references.

You should. There's a goldmine of phenomenal lines on there. Along with some clunkers ("I only played chess once in my life and I lost," I'm looking at you ), but that's to be expected.

 

[u2popmofo]

Dang, that's one of my favs from Sky For Shoeing, actually.

"I'm f**king cold like a DQ Blizzard" from 'Yo Yo Bye Bye' on Elephant Eyelash is great (I was just listening to that as typing).

I'm not sure if their Myspace still has it or not, but they had a free download up of their cover of The Cure's 'Close To Me' on there last year. It's so drastically different that it's pretty enjoyable to hear from time to time.

 

[onebloodonelife]

Dang, that's one of my favs from Sky For Shoeing, actually.

"I'm f**king cold like a DQ Blizzard" from 'Yo Yo Bye Bye' on Elephant Eyelash is great (I was just listening to that as typing).

I'm not sure if their Myspace still has it or not, but they had a free download up of their cover of The Cure's 'Close To Me' on there last year. It's so drastically different that it's pretty enjoyable to hear from time to time.

I don't like how he delivers it. I feel like the line's too pretentious and profound for its own good. He's better at making observations and smart comments when he's not trying. All just my opinion of course.

That's the line I've got as my status now, actually. Love that line so much.

Nope, it's up to listen to, but not to download. Which, as I'm sure you know, means I'll be finding it through non-Utahian means.

 

[u2popmofo]

Nope, it's up to listen to, but not to download. Which, as I'm sure you know, means I'll be finding it through non-Utahian means.

It was on there for free just a year ago, so I won't judge in this instance.

That's kinda what makes the chess line for me. It's so ridiculous in and of itself that the serious delivery cracks me up.

One of my most memorable experiences from seeing them live last year was hearing them soundcheck 'Fatalist Palmistry' from outside the venue. The doors were open, and I could hear it perfectly from where I was. They didn't even play it during the show, but it sounded so fantastic during the soundcheck that I didn't even care. None of that had anything to do with what we were talking about, but I'm just glad there's finally someone on here that I can discuss Alopecia with as much as I'd wanted to for the last year and a half.

 

[If you shout...]

"The Fall of Mr. Fifths" is still the only straight-up great song on that record, although I'll pretty gladly give you "A Sky For Shoeing Horses Under," if I have to make any further concessions.

 

[u2popmofo]

Arbitrarily yours,

Shouter