Description:	CD on Tomlab
	Format:	CD
	Genre(s):	Experimental Indie
	Label:	Tomlab
	Price:	£11.29
	Availability:	Dispatched within 2-5 days (on average).

5
...according to our Clinton on 01 October 2009.

I still think 'Elephant Eyelash' is the best Why? album. That's the one with the real cross breed of avant hop and slacker indie rock where you can barely see the lines being blurred. Last years 'Alopecia' was reasonably good but ...hmm.. I just found it a little - how shall i put this- major label-y despite it not being on a major label. We're not even at the end of 2009 and we have another offering called 'Eskimo Snow', this time its a full on singer songwriter effort. Piano led meandering songs that kind of sound like Pavement singing the Randy Newman songbook. The spectre of They Might Be Giants looms large in everything Why? does and this has similarities to their overlooked album 'John Henry' which saw them doing a more straight ahead brand of music without the oddball quirkiness. So an album to take home and live with for a few months rather than one that is going to give you instant thrills. The proof in the pudding is whether the songs unfurl themselves and reveal hidden melodies on repeated listening or whether they just stay at meandering. On second listen i'd say the former is more likely. Why? is a superb songwriter whose songs can sometimes jar on first listen but the more you hear his work the more you realise the lad knows what he's doing. I'm going to stick my neck out and give this a recommendation. On Tomla

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Sound clips for Eskimo Snow by Why?: on CD at Norman Records UK. CD, Tomlab, TOM129CD, £11.29.

What their label says...

*  A year and a half after releasing the acclaimed Alopecia LP, WHY? returns with their fourth album, Eskimo Snow.

*  The two records are each other’s perfect foil: While last year’s release found Yoni Wolf and the gang delivering a tight set of intricate rhymes, live loops, slurred hooks and acerbic wit, Eskimo Snow offers a sung, sobering take on mortality that unfurls in lush waves of Americana and pop-infused psych-folk.

*  Pre-mixed in Nashville by Lambchop’s Mark Nevers (Silver Jews, Bonnie Prince Billy, Calexico) and worked over by Alopecia engineer Eli Crews, this album is WHY?’s most live-sounding yet - a shadowy and sprawling piece as intimate in subject matter as it is handsome in timbre.

*  "These Hands" opens the album up rich and with deliberate pacing, Doug matching Yoni word-for-word (you’ll find no vocal overdubs here) and the rhythm section operating under heavy reverb. Vibraphone likewise duets with piano, windy wordless vocals fly around the atmosphere, and wet footsteps soon carry us to "January Twenty Something." Here, you’re in the room with WHY?, listening to the bass rattle the drums and the drums rattle the vibes. Amid this folksy grandness, the whole crew sings for the chorus, bending their harmony into a gorgeously warped drawl. Next, "Against Me" brings the album’s brightest moment yet: a crescendo of bells that eventually dips into an aural whirlpool while Yoni spins picturesque observations like a countrified Dylan.

*  Tracklisting 1. These Hands 2. January Twenty Something 3. Against Me 4. Even The Good Wood Gone 5. Into The Shadows Of My Embrace 6. One Rose 7. On Rose Walk, Insomniac 8. Berkeley By Hearseback 9. This Blackest Purse 10. Eskimo Snow