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Album Review: Why? Alopecia

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By: Lee H | in: Music |

Why? Alopecia

I discovered the Anticon record label about 7 years ago from one of my best friends. For those of you not acquainted with Anticon I think it would be best to let them explain it: “we make up poems, sing raps, lift drums, and invent albums so that we might do the impossible and make a living out of following our curiosities, we mass produce our music, pin price tags to its shrink-wrapped surface, and float it out into the world.” Though rooted mainly in hip-hop it’s almost impossible to categorize the majority of their releases. Their Dadaist, stream of consciousness, way with music may be a hard to take it first (it certainly was for me) but if you hang in there it can be very rewarding.

Why? Good Friday

Why? As far as I know was originally one person (Yoni Wolf) but has expanded to include Josiah Wolf (Drums) & Doug McDiarmid (pianos, guitars, samplers and turntables.) My first introduction to Why? The solo artist was on his work with cLOUDHEAD which also included dose and Anticon DJ/producer odd nosdam. Their 2004 album Ten is still on heavy rotation on my iPod.

Why

This past March marked the release of “Alopecia” That’s right, an album named after the medical term for male pattern baldness. The oddities don’t stop there. Yoni Wolf’s idea of a shout out is “This goes out to all my underdone, other tongued, long-lunged front men” (” The Hollows”) His idea of smooth talk is “You’re a beautiful and violent word/ With the skinny neck of a Chinese bird” (”These few Presidents”) And his version of smack talk is “Blowing kisses to disinterested bitches/ Playing lead lay in a bad way on Broadway/ Sending sexy SM’s to my ex’s new man/ Because I can” (”Good Friday”) On “By Torpedo or Crohn’s” Yoni contemplates his own mortality and gives the only reference to the album title I can find “will they map my skull and wrap my bones when my wig is gone? Hmmm / i’ll go unknown by torpedo or crohns /only those evil live to see their own likeness in stone.”

Why? Fatalist Palmistry

Like all great albums it truly gets better with each listen. If nothing else you have to visit their MySpace page to see the hilarious adventures of Casey and Paul. www.myspace.com/whyanticon


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Posted on July 19, 2008

Comments

One Response to “Album Review: Why? Alopecia”

  1. Adam D. on July 25th, 2008 2:49 am

    its “cLOUDDEAD”


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