editor's info:
12 trks, 41 mins. Record of the year! A gorgeously rendered smile-twisted opus of bright colors and dark corners. Why? has become a warp-mouthed Dylanesque poet of epic order.

Elephant Eyelash is a beautiful and realized work, a smile-twisted opus of bright colors and dark corners that stands as a fitting culmination to a career of fearless moves by its head architect, Yoni Wolf (cLOUDDEAD, Reaching Quiet, Hymie's Basement). After six years of treating WHY? as his solo project, Yoni's returned with his three best men and an arsenal of instruments - the perfect counterparts to his many-styled, collagist approach to peculiar pop. Sanddollars, the EP (released in May) saw the band working their way through a short set of miniature oeuvres, but The Lash is the real deal: gorgeously rendered jangly psych-rock folk-hop spread across 12 songs that bleed and breath all over one another.
Pavement, Neutral Milk Hotel, Krautrock and dub are all channeled here, but the mix never gets too heady. The Beatles and Danielson Famile are in there too, as is some of Yoni's trademark smirk, that half-grin that reminds us all that it's life's inconsistencies that make it so damn addicting. This is a record for the radio or the headphones, a funeral or a wedding, a summer day or the worst rain, but nothing so drab as to fall haphazardly in the in-between. Elephant Eyelash is something grand, dear journalist, something to be excited about again. Let WHY? remind us all: musician, critic, fan, friend, why it is we're in this. Onward.