Big Hassle Media NY
40 Exchange Pl, Ste. 1900
New York, NY 10005
P 212.619.1360
Big Hassle Media LA
3685 Motor Ave Suite 240.
Los Angeles, CA 90034
P 424.603.4655
Yoni Wolf has spent the last two decades traveling the remote sonic terrain where hip-hop, rock, and electronic music meet. In that time he’s cultivated a unique sound, and a unique position as one of contemporary music’s most distinctive voices. Some of Yoni’s most compelling and critically-praised musical experiments have been issued under the moniker WHY? and his latest entry is no exception. On AOKOHIO Yoni condenses the essential elements of WHY? into astunningly potent musical vision.
Photo credit: Ryan Back
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WHY?
RELEASES THIRD MOVEMENT FROM
NEW VISUAL ALBUM
AOKOHIO
OUT AUGUST 9, 2019 VIA JOYFUL NOISE RECORDINGS
“III. PLEASE TAKE ME HOME, I DON’T BELONG HERE.”
FOUR-SONG MOVEMENT WITH ACCOMPANYING VISUAL
STARRING TATIANA MASLANY
AND DIRECTED BY MILES JORIS-PEYRAFITTE
WATCH THE FULL VIDEO AND
HEAR THE AUDIO-ONLY VERSION,
INCLUDING “HIGH DIVE“
HEADLINE NORTH AMERICAN TOUR
SLATED FOR THIS FALL
Photo credit: Ryan Back
WHY?, the creative moniker for consummate wordsmith and beloved songwriter Yoni Wolf, is excited to announce AOKOHIO, a visual album to be released on August 9, 2019, via Joyful Noise Recordings. Today, WHY? is sharing the album’s second three-song movement and accompanying visual, “III. Please take me home, I don’t belong here.,” which features focus track “High Dive.” The album’s entire visual element stars Emmy-winning actress Tatiana Maslany (Orphan Black) and was directed by Sundance Dramatic Special Jury Award-winner Miles Joris-Peyrafitte. Stream or embed the video HERE. Hear the entire audio-only version HERE, and hear “High Dive” on its own HERE.
The lead-up to AOKOHIO will follow the somewhat unconventional path of gradually revealing the entire album in playing sequence, each movement accompanied by its own visual element, from now until its August 9 release date. The visual component of the album is anchored by a continuing narrative, which will continue to take shape until the album is released.
AOKOHIO‘s themes of familial anxieties and nostalgia will be familiar to many, but few have attempted as clear-eyed and sincere a portrayal as Wolf has succeeded with here. Collaborators like Lala Lala‘s Lillie West and both members of Sylvan Esso will no doubt come as welcome additions, both serving to bolster the unmistakable sound and vision on which WHY? has grown its legions of fans.
WHY? has also announced a run of North American headline tour dates with Anna Burch and Barrie, beginning on August 14 in Indianapolis, IN at Hi-Fi and concluding on September 22 in Chicago, IL at Thalia Hall. See below for the full list of currently-announced dates.
WATCH “III. PLEASE TAKE ME HOME, I DON’T BELONG HERE.”
HEAR THE AUDIO-ONLY VERSION
HEAR “STAINED GLASS SLIPPER” (AUDIO)
Yoni Wolf has spent the last two decades traveling the remote sonic terrain where hip-hop, rock, and electronic music meet. In that time he’s cultivated a unique sound, and a unique position as one of contemporary music’s most distinctive voices. Some of Yoni’s most compelling and critically-praised musical experiments have been issued under the moniker WHY? and his latest entry is no exception. On AOKOHIO Yoni condenses the essential elements of WHY? into a stunningly potent musical vision.
Co-produced by Yoni and his brother Josiah, AOKOHIO presents a rich palette of musical voices that emerge and disappear into a constantly shifting kaleidoscope of sound. “I wanted a wide variety of sounds. I didn’t want this album to sit in one sonic zone. I’ve always felt like too jagged of a person to be smooth in that way,” Yoni says. While the album features many notable guest contributors, from Lala Lala’s Lillie West, to Nick Sanborn and Amelia Meath of Sylvan Esso, the listener’s attention remains squarely directed on Yoni’s voice and vision. AOKOHIO finds Yoni rethinking fundamental aspects of his approach to creating and delivering his music. The album is presented as six movements comprised of two to four songs each, with some segments appearing as brief fragments that dissolve within seconds.
“When I started this project, I decided I needed to try a new approach in creating music and how I work,” Yoni reflects. “I wasn’t feeling the idea of going back in and making another ten or twelve song album. It felt arduous. It felt like too much. So I wanted to pare the process down and make it manageable. I thought, ‘Why don’t I make small five or six minute movements and finish up each movement before I move on to the next.’ That’s how I started approaching it. The whole process took over five years, I’d start working on something and set it aside for a while. The earliest songs on this album started in 2013.“
As Yoni reimagined his approach to creating music, he also began thinking of new ways to share the music with his audience. “I initially wanted to release the music as I progressed through the project,” Yoni says. “When I finished a movement I wanted to put it up digitally on Bandcamp or Soundcloud. I just wanted to make little pieces of music and put them out there. But I had a call with my manager and the label and they said, ‘We can release stuff through time like that, but we want to do it properly.’ So the idea of the project changed after that, but it retained the integrity of working in movements. It’s definitely a very different way of working for me. I think it has yielded some interesting results.”
The concept of sharing AOKOHIO in segments over time has been preserved with the release of an accompanying visual album. “I think it’s a very artful way of putting the music out there,” Yoni explains. “It’s like a television series, it’s revealing itself slowly over time. I think it’s cool that the audience gets to hear it one piece at a time, and has to wait and digest each piece before they get the next one.”
“I knew early on that I wanted that visual element for this album,” Yoni recalls. “My brother and I have worked on video stuff our whole lives. Our dad had video equipment since we were little kids, he had an editing suite in our basement. We weren’t rich, we were actually very poor, but somehow he’d gotten ahold of these video editing desks and cameras. Even though my brother and I had dabbled in video as kids, it’s not what we do for a living. So we wanted to find someone, and fucking randomly a guy messaged me on Instagram and was like, ‘Hey, I like your music and I’d love to work with you.’ I looked at his work and I was like, ‘This guy is for real!’ “
The author of that fateful Instagram message was Sundance award-winning director Miles Joris-Peyrafitte “Miles directed the first three segments of the visual album and is the mastermind of the overarching video project,” Yoni explains. Joris-Peyrafitte’s visuals cut contemporary footage of Yoni and actress Tatiana Maslany with vintage home videos documenting Yoni’s childhood life in Cincinnati. It’s a fitting juxtaposition, as Yoni’s lyrics on AOKOHIO seem to question how memory, history, and place shape our anxieties and sense of self. “I moved back to Cincinnati after living in the Bay Area for over a decade,” Yoni says. “This album is very much me thinking about my mom and dad, and my siblings.”
Yoni’s return to his Ohio hometown brought on a period of critical self-reflection. “Is there a word for bad nostalgia?” Yoni asks. “When I think of the word nostalgia, it seems like pleasant feelings and all that, but this is not really like that. It’s more about reflecting on the anxieties I’ve had since I was born. Why are they there? Is this epigenetics? Is that shit just inside of me because of the Holocaust and my relatives back then? What am I really? Why do I operate in these ways?”
Ultimately AOKOHIO sees Yoni pushing to find meaning and peace of mind in the moment, even if it’s not exactly where he wants to be. “The title is sarcastic I guess,” Yoni offers. “But it’s also wishful. A lot of my album titles have been names of maladies, like Alopecia and Mumps, Etc. I don’t want to project that into the world. You know, ‘A-OK Ohio, I’m here and it’s fine.’ It’s like a mantra, ‘A-OK Ohio, I’m here and it’s OK.’ Even though in reality, every day I’m like, ‘I’ve got to get the hell out of Ohio.'”
AOKOHIO feels like a consequential addition to the WHY? catalog, possibly even an artistic turning point. But its creator remains circumspect when asked to comment on the album’s significance within his discography, instead preferring to characterize the work as the latest iteration of his deep commitment to his artistic practice. “I have no idea if this record is good or not,” Yoni says. “But I never really know. I know that I’ve never written a song that’s indispensable to the American songbook. But in terms of what it is, it’s a piece of art. I put blood, sweat, and tears into this album, and struggled through the creative process as I always do. As far as where this sits with the rest of my albums? I can’t answer that. I just know that my career is a lifelong career, and I’m working it. Every time it feels right, it makes me feel good.”
AOKOHIO track list:
I: I may come out a broken yolk, I may come out on saddle.
1. Apogee
2. The Rash
3. Peel Free
II: I’ve been carving my elbows, I might just take flight.
4. Reason
5. Deleterio Motilis
6. Stained Glass Slipper
III: Please take me home, I don’t belong here.
7. The Launch
8. High Dive
9. Mr. Fifths’ Plea
10. Good Fire
IV: The surgeon nervously goes on, he never claimed to be God.
11. Narcissistic Lamentation
12. Krevin’
13. The Crippled Physician
14. Ustekinumab
V: I want to live with conviction, in silence and diction.
15. My Original
16. Rock Candy
17. Once Shy
VI: Though I’m tired, I’m still trying.
18. The Shame
19. Bloom Wither Bloom (for Mom)
WHY?
LIVE 2019
8/14 – Indianapolis, IN – Hi-Fi *
8/15 – Grand Rapids, MI – Pyramid Scheme *
8/16 – Detroit, MI – Magic Stick *
8/17 – Toronto, ON – Lee’s Palace ^
8/18 – Montreal, QC – Le Ministère ^
8/20 – Holyoke, MA – Gateway City Arts ^
8/21 – Boston, MA – The Sinclair ^
8/23 – Brooklyn, NY – Warsaw
8/24 – Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer ^
8/25 – Washington DC – U Street Music Hall ^
8/26 – Carrboro, NC – Cat’s Cradle ^
8/28 – Atlanta, GA – Terminal West ^
8/29 – Orlando, FL – The Abbey ^
8/30 – Pensacola, FL – Vinyl Music Hall ^
8/31 – Houston, TX – White Oak Music Hall ^
9/1 – Dallas, TX – Trees ^
9/3 – Austin, TX – Mohawk ^
9/4 – Norman, OK – The Opolis ^
9/5 – Santa Fe, NM – Meow Wolf ^
9/6 – Phoenix, AZ – Crescent Ballroom ^
9/7 – Los Angeles, CA – Teragram Ballroom ^
9/8 – Santa Ana, CA – Constellation Room ^
9/10 – Fresno, CA – Strummer’s ^
9/11 – San Francisco, CA – August Hall ^
9/13 – Portland, OR – Revolution Hall ^
9/14 – Vancouver BC – The Imperial ^
9/15 – Seattle, WA – Neumos ^
9/17 – Boise, ID – Visual Arts Collective ^
9/18 – Salt Lake City, UT – Urban Lounge ^
9/19 – Denver, CO – Bluebird Theater ^
9/20 – Omaha, NE – The Waiting Room ^
9/21 – Minneapolis, MN – Fine Line ^
9/22 – Chicago, IL – Thalia Hall ^
* w/ Anna Burch
^ w/ Barrie
CONNECT WITH WHY?:
WEB | INSTAGRAM | FACEBOOK | TWITTER | BANDCAMP
###
For more information, please contact:
Zack Kraimer
WHY?
RELEASES FOURTH MOVEMENT FROM
NEW VISUAL ALBUM
AOKOHIO
OUT AUGUST 9, 2019 VIA JOYFUL NOISE RECORDINGS
“IV. THE SURGEON NERVOUSLY GOES ON, HE NEVER CLAIMED TO BE GOD.”
FOUR-SONG MOVEMENT WITH ACCOMPANYING VISUAL
STARRING TATIANA MASLANY
AND DIRECTED BY MILES JORIS-PEYRAFITTE & JAMES SIEWERT
AUDIO COMPONENT PREMIERED VIA STEREOGUM
WATCH THE FULL VIDEO AND
HEAR THE AUDIO-ONLY VERSION,
INCLUDING “THE CRIPPLED PHYSICIAN” (FT. LALA LALA & GIA MARGARET)
HEADLINE NORTH AMERICAN TOUR
SLATED FOR THIS FALL
Photo credit: Ryan Back
WHY?, the creative moniker for consummate wordsmith and beloved songwriter Yoni Wolf, has shared the fourth movement from AOKOHIO, a visual album to be released on August 9, 2019 via Joyful Noise Recordings. The audio component of “IV. The surgeon nervously goes on, he never claimed to be God.” premiered via Stereogum, who said “The suite of songs submerges into watery, abstract vignettes, dressed with found sounds, vocal warping and a palpable air of unease.” The album’s entire visual element stars Emmy-winning actress Tatiana Maslany(Orphan Black) and was directed by Sundance Dramatic Special Jury Award-winner Miles Joris-Peyrafitte. The latter half of this fourth movement was directed by James Siewert. Stream or embed the video HERE. Hear the entire audio-only version HERE, and hear “The Crippled Physician” (ft. Lala Lala & Gia Margaret) on its own HERE.
“‘The surgeon nervously goes on, he never claimed to be God.’ follows a character who is tested under the pressures of being in demand as a spiritual healer of sorts up against their own physical limitations due to chronic illness,” Wolf said of the movement. “The initial concept was sparked by the Carl Jung quote ‘Only the wounded physician heals.'”
“The first half of the visual album dealt with the past – an artist grounding his present in his childhood. As the album takes a darker turn in this section, I wanted the video to now reflect an anxious uncertain future,” co-director James Siewert said. “The promise of technology expressed the first half – using old video tapes to construct a unified narrative of self which stretches from birth to the present is distorted and shattered. New technologies which alter reality, rather than simply document it are introduced. From these anxieties, a possible future self emerges.”
WATCH “IV. THE SURGEON NERVOUSLY GOES ON,
HE NEVER CLAIMED TO BE GOD.”
HEAR THE AUDIO-ONLY VERSION
HEAR “THE CRIPPLED PHYSICIAN” (AUDIO)
The lead-up to AOKOHIO will follow the somewhat unconventional path of gradually revealing the entire album in playing sequence, each movement accompanied by its own visual element, from now until its August 9 release date. The visual component of the album is anchored by a continuing narrative, which will continue to take shape until the album is released.
AOKOHIO’s themes of familial anxieties and nostalgia will be familiar to many, but few have attempted as clear-eyed and sincere a portrayal as Wolf has succeeded with here. Collaborators like Lala Lala’s Lillie West and both members of Sylvan Esso will no doubt come as welcome additions, both serving to bolster the unmistakable sound and vision on which WHY? has grown its legions of fans.
WHY? has also announced a run of North American headline tour dates with Anna Burch and Barrie, beginning on August 14 in Indianapolis, IN at Hi-Fi and concluding on September 22 in Chicago, IL at Thalia Hall. See below for the full list of currently-announced dates.
Yoni Wolf has spent the last two decades traveling the remote sonic terrain where hip-hop, rock, and electronic music meet. In that time he’s cultivated a unique sound, and a unique position as one of contemporary music’s most distinctive voices. Some of Yoni’s most compelling and critically-praised musical experiments have been issued under the moniker WHY? and his latest entry is no exception. On AOKOHIO Yoni condenses the essential elements of WHY? into astunningly potent musical vision.
Co-produced by Yoni and his brother Josiah, AOKOHIO presents a rich palette of musical voices that emerge and disappear into a constantly shifting kaleidoscope of sound. “I wanted a wide variety of sounds. I didn’t want this album to sit in one sonic zone. I’ve always felt like too jagged of a person to be smooth in that way,” Yoni says. While the album features many notable guest contributors, from Lala Lala’s Lillie West, to Nick Sanborn and Amelia Meath of Sylvan Esso, the listener’s attention remains squarely directed on Yoni’s voice and vision. AOKOHIO finds Yoni rethinking fundamental aspects of his approach to creating and delivering his music. The album is presented as six movements comprised of two to four songs each, with some segments appearing as brief fragments that dissolve within seconds.
“When I started this project, I decided I needed to try a new approach in creating music and how I work,” Yoni reflects. “I wasn’t feeling the idea of going back in and making another ten or twelve song album. It felt arduous. It felt like too much. So I wanted to pare the process down and make it manageable. I thought, ‘Why don’t I make small five or six minute movements and finish up each movement before I move on to the next.’ That’s how I started approaching it. The whole process took over five years, I’d start working on something and set it aside for awhile. The earliest songs on this album started in 2013.“
As Yoni reimagined his approach to creating music, he also began thinking of new ways to share the music with his audience. “I initially wanted to release the music as I progressed through the project,” Yoni says. “When I finished a movement I wanted to put it up digitally on Bandcamp or Soundcloud. I just wanted to make little pieces of music and put them out there. But I had a call with my manager and the label and they said, ‘We can release stuff through time like that, but we want to do it properly.’ So the idea of the project changed after that, but it retained the integrity of working in movements. It’s definitely a very different way of working for me. I think it has yielded some interesting results.”
The concept of sharing AOKOHIO in segments over time has been preserved with the release of an accompanying visual album. “I think it’s a very artful way of putting the the music out there,” Yoni explains. “It’s like a television series, it’s revealing itself slowly over time. I think it’s cool that the audience gets to hear it one piece at a time, and has to wait and digest each piece before they get the next one.”
“I knew early on that I wanted that visual element for this album,” Yoni recalls. “My brother and I have worked on video stuff our whole lives. Our dad had video equipment since we were little kids, he had an editing suite in our basement. We weren’t rich, we were actually very poor, but somehow he’d gotten ahold of these video editing desks and cameras. Even though my brother and I had dabbled in video as kids, it’s not what we do for a living. So we wanted to find someone, and fucking randomly a guy messaged me on Instagram and was like, ‘Hey, I like your music and I’d love to work with you.’ I looked at his work and I was like, ‘This guy is for real!’ “
The author of that fateful Instagram message was Sundance award-winning director Miles Joris-Peyrafitte. “Miles directed the first three segments of the visual album and is the mastermind of the overarching video project,” Yoni explains. Joris-Peyrafitte’s visuals cut contemporary footage of Yoni and actress Tatiana Maslany with vintage home videos documenting Yoni’s childhood life in Cincinnati. It’s a fitting juxtaposition, as Yoni’s lyrics on AOKOHIOseem to question how memory, history, and place shape our anxieties and sense of self. “I moved back to Cincinnati after living in the Bay Area for over a decade,” Yoni says. “This album is very much me thinking about my mom and dad, and my siblings.”
Yoni’s return to his Ohio hometown brought on a period of critical self-reflection. “Is there a word for bad nostalgia?” Yoni asks. “When I think of the word nostalgia, it seems like pleasant feelings and all that, but this is not really like that. It’s more about reflecting on the anxieties I’ve had since I was born. Why are they there? Is this epigenetics? Is that shit just inside of me because of the Holocaust and my relatives back then? What am I really? Why do I operate in these ways?”
Ultimately AOKOHIO sees Yoni pushing to find meaning and peace of mind in the moment, even if it’s not exactly where he wants to be. “The title is sarcastic I guess,” Yoni offers. “But it’s also wishful. A lot of my album titles have been names of maladies, like Alopecia and Mumps, Etc. I don’t want to project that into the world. You know, ‘A-OK Ohio, I’m here and it’s fine.’ It’s like a mantra, ‘A-OK Ohio, I’m here and it’s OK.’ Even though in reality, everyday I’m like, ‘I’ve got to get the hell out of Ohio.'”
AOKOHIO feels like a consequential addition to the WHY? catalog, possibly even an artistic turning point. But its creator remains circumspect when asked to comment on the album’s significance within his discography, instead preferring to characterize the work as the latest iteration of his deep commitment to his artistic practice. “I have no idea if this record is good or not,” Yoni says. “But I never really know. I know that I’ve never written a song that’s indispensable to the American songbook. But in terms of what it is, it’s a piece of art. I put blood, sweat, and tears into this album, and struggled through the creative process as I always do. As far as where this sits with the rest of my albums? I can’t answer that. I just know that my career is a lifelong career, and I’m working it. Every time it feels right, it makes me feel good.”
AOKOHIO track list:
I: I may come out a broken yolk, I may come out on saddle.
1. Apogee
2. The Rash
3. Peel Free
II: I’ve been carving my elbows, I might just take flight.
4. Reason
5. Deleterio Motilis
6. Stained Glass Slipper
III: Please take me home, I don’t belong here.
7. The Launch
8. High Dive
9. Mr. Fifths’ Plea
10. Good Fire
IV: The surgeon nervously goes on, he never claimed to be God.
11. Narcissistic Lamentation
12. Krevin’
13. The Crippled Physician
14. Ustekinumab
V: I want to live with conviction, in silence and diction.
15. My Original
16. Rock Candy
17. Once Shy
VI: Though I’m tired, I’m still trying.
18. The Shame
19. Bloom Wither Bloom (for Mom)
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For more information, please contact:
Zack Kraimer
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WHY?
SHARE COVER OF
SILVER JEWS’ “WE ARE REAL”
ALL PROCEEDS GOING TO AFSP
(AMERICAN FOUNDATION FOR SUICIDE PREVENTION)
AND MUSICARES
NEW VISUAL ALBUM AOKOHIO OUT NOW
VIA JOYFUL NOISE RECORDINGS
STARRING TATIANA MASLANY AND
DIRECTED BY MILES JORIS-PEYRAFITTE AND JAMES SIEWERT
Today, WHY?, the creative moniker for consummate wordsmith and beloved songwriter Yoni Wolf, has shared a cover of Silver Jews’ “We Are Real” in tribute to the late David Berman and World Mental Health Day. The track features additional vocals from Lillie West (Lala Lala) and Gabby Smith. All proceeds from the cover will be going to AFSP (American Foundation for Suicide Prevention) and MusiCares — pre-order HERE, and learn more about World Mental Health Day HERE.
Speaking about the cover, Yoni says, “I always looked up to David Berman. His songs and his poetry book had a huge impact on me in my early career. His death was a staggering blow. We were only distant acquaintances but he somehow felt like a long lost half big brother or estranged uncle. I was a wreck for several days after I heard the news, listening to and reading all his work. Then I decided to learn “We Are Real” as a way to console myself. It was quite an emotional experience but sure enough it helped a lot to just sing his words out loud.”
HEAR “WE ARE REAL”
WATCH AOKOHIO IN FULL
AOKOHIO‘s themes of familial anxieties and nostalgia will be familiar to many, but few have attempted as clear-eyed and sincere a portrayal as Wolf has succeeded with here. Collaborators like Lala Lala‘s Lillie West and both members of Sylvan Esso will no doubt come as welcome additions, both serving to bolster the unmistakable sound and vision on which WHY? has grown its legions of fans.
AOKOHIO track list:
I: I may come out a broken yolk, I may come out on saddle.
1. Apogee
2. The Rash
3. Peel Free
II: I’ve been carving my elbows, I might just take flight.
4. Reason
5. Deleterio Motilis
6. Stained Glass Slipper
III: Please take me home, I don’t belong here.
7. The Launch
8. High Dive
9. Mr. Fifths’ Plea
10. Good Fire
IV: The surgeon nervously goes on, he never claimed to be God.
11. Narcissistic Lamentation
12. Krevin’
13. The Crippled Physician
14. Ustekinumab
V: I want to live with conviction, in silence and diction.
15. My Original
16. Rock Candy
17. Once Shy
VI: Though I’m tired, I’m still trying.
18. The Shame
19. Bloom Wither Bloom (for Mom)
Yoni Wolf has spent the last two decades traveling the remote sonic terrain where hip-hop, rock, and electronic music meet. In that time he’s cultivated a unique sound, and a unique position as one of contemporary music’s most distinctive voices. Some of Yoni’s most compelling and critically-praised musical experiments have been issued under the moniker WHY? and his latest entry is no exception. OnAOKOHIO Yoni condenses the essential elements of WHY? into a stunningly potent musical vision.
Co-produced by Yoni and his brother Josiah, AOKOHIO presents a rich palette of musical voices that emerge and disappear into a constantly shifting kaleidoscope of sound. “I wanted a wide variety of sounds. I didn’t want this album to sit in one sonic zone. I’ve always felt like too jagged of a person to be smooth in that way,” Yoni says. While the album features many notable guest contributors, from Lala Lala’s Lillie West, to Nick Sanborn and Amelia Meath of Sylvan Esso, the listener’s attention remains squarely directed on Yoni’s voice and vision. AOKOHIO finds Yoni rethinking fundamental aspects of his approach to creating and delivering his music. The album is presented as six movements comprised of two to four songs each, with some segments appearing as brief fragments that dissolve within seconds.
“When I started this project, I decided I needed to try a new approach in creating music and how I work,” Yoni reflects. “I wasn’t feeling the idea of going back in and making another ten or twelve song album. It felt arduous. It felt like too much. So I wanted to pare the process down and make it manageable. I thought, ‘Why don’t I make small five or six minute movements and finish up each movement before I move on to the next.’ That’s how I started approaching it. The whole process took over five years, I’d start working on something and set it aside for awhile. The earliest songs on this album started in 2013.“
As Yoni reimagined his approach to creating music, he also began thinking of new ways to share the music with his audience. “I initially wanted to release the music as I progressed through the project,” Yoni says. “When I finished a movement I wanted to put it up digitally on Bandcamp or Soundcloud. I just wanted to make little pieces of music and put them out there. But I had a call with my manager and the label and they said, ‘We can release stuff through time like that, but we want to do it properly.’ So the idea of the project changed after that, but it retained the integrity of working in movements. It’s definitely a very different way of working for me. I think it has yielded some interesting results.”
The concept of sharing AOKOHIO in segments over time has been preserved with the release of an accompanying visual album. “I think it’s a very artful way of putting the the music out there,” Yoni explains. “It’s like a television series, it’s revealing itself slowly over time. I think it’s cool that the audience gets to hear it one piece at a time, and has to wait and digest each piece before they get the next one.”
“I knew early on that I wanted that visual element for this album,” Yoni recalls. “My brother and I have worked on video stuff our whole lives. Our dad had video equipment since we were little kids, he had an editing suite in our basement. We weren’t rich, we were actually very poor, but somehow he’d gotten ahold of these video editing desks and cameras. Even though my brother and I had dabbled in video as kids, it’s not what we do for a living. So we wanted to find someone, and fucking randomly a guy messaged me on Instagram and was like, ‘Hey, I like your music and I’d love to work with you.’ I looked at his work and I was like, ‘This guy is for real!’ “
The author of that fateful Instagram message was Sundance award-winning director Miles Joris-Peyrafitte. “Miles directed the first three segments of the visual album and is the mastermind of the overarching video project,” Yoni explains. Joris-Peyrafitte’s visuals cut contemporary footage of Yoni and actress Tatiana Maslany with vintage home videos documenting Yoni’s childhood life in Cincinnati. It’s a fitting juxtaposition, as Yoni’s lyrics on AOKOHIO seem to question how memory, history, and place shape our anxieties and sense of self. “I moved back to Cincinnati after living in the Bay Area for over a decade,” Yoni says. “This album is very much me thinking about my mom and dad, and my siblings.”
Yoni’s return to his Ohio hometown brought on a period of critical self-reflection. “Is there a word for bad nostalgia?” Yoni asks. “When I think of the word nostalgia, it seems like pleasant feelings and all that, but this is not really like that. It’s more about reflecting on the anxieties I’ve had since I was born. Why are they there? Is this epigenetics? Is that shit just inside of me because of the Holocaust and my relatives back then? What am I really? Why do I operate in these ways?”
Ultimately AOKOHIO sees Yoni pushing to find meaning and peace of mind in the moment, even if it’s not exactly where he wants to be. “The title is sarcastic I guess,” Yoni offers. “But it’s also wishful. A lot of my album titles have been names of maladies, like Alopecia and Mumps, Etc. I don’t want to project that into the world. You know, ‘A-OK Ohio, I’m here and it’s fine.’ It’s like a mantra, ‘A-OK Ohio, I’m here and it’s OK.’ Even though in reality, everyday I’m like, ‘I’ve got to get the hell out of Ohio.'”
AOKOHIO feels like a consequential addition to the WHY? catalog, possibly even an artistic turning point. But its creator remains circumspect when asked to comment on the album’s significance within his discography, instead preferring to characterize the work as the latest iteration of his deep commitment to his artistic practice. “I have no idea if this record is good or not,” Yoni says. “But I never really know. I know that I’ve never written a song that’s indispensable to the American songbook. But in terms of what it is, it’s a piece of art. I put blood, sweat, and tears into this album, and struggled through the creative process as I always do. As far as where this sits with the rest of my albums? I can’t answer that. I just know that my career is a lifelong career, and I’m working it. Every time it feels right, it makes me feel good.”
WHY?
LIVE 2019
10/23 – Glasgow, UK – Stereo
10/24 – Manchester, UK – Band on the Wall
10/25 – Leeds, UK – Belgrave Music Hall
10/26 – London, UK – Islington Assembly Hall
10/28 – Bristol, UK – Exchange
10/30 – Brighton, UK – Patterns
10/31 – Antwerp, BE – Trix Club
11/1 – Utrecht, NL – Ekko
11/3 – München, DE – Kranhalle
11/4 – Frankfurt, DE – Zoom
11/5 – Berlin, DE – Frannz Club
11/6 – Copenhagen, DK – Vega
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