Tom Waits, #23, Why?
Discordian Enigma: Ah, the magical number, 23. Beyond dull Jim Carey films, 23 has a long history in magik circles, a number presenting power and intrigue, darkness and glory, Egyptian mystery schools and ethereal jazz improvisations. None other that this year's recipient for Album of the Year Grammy, Herbie Hancock, once helmed a band (Mwandishi) who lived and died by the lore of 23. Drummer Billy Hart tells stories of how the band would see 23 throughout their travels. Whether or not this mystical bent influenced their daring, deep bowelled jazz of the '70s is unknown, but Mwandishi remain one of the more left-of-center jazz groups of that anti-jazz era.
"'The 23 Enigma' is the Discordian belief that all events are connected to the number 23, given enough ingenuity on the part of the interpreter," notes Wikipedia. "It can be seen in Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea's Illuminatus! trilogy (there called the ‘23/17 phenomenon'), Wilson's Cosmic Trigger I: The Final Secret Of The Illuminati (there called ‘The Law of 23s' and ‘The 23 Enigma'), Arthur Koestler's Challenge Of Chance, as well as the Principia Discordia. In these works, 23 is considered either lucky, unlucky, sacred to the goddess Eris, sinister, sacred to the unholy gods of the Cthulhu Mythos, or strange. Discordians regard this as a corollary of the Law of Fives."
And what of Why? "Two years after wooing critics with their beloved Elephant Eyelash," goes the PR blather, "Why? return, third LP in hand. Alopecia is a collection of hard rhymes and raw-spun songs forced through the stubborn smile of a life-lover scorned and reborn. This is an album of bone-dry jokes, suicides played out in poem, musings on final moments written inside of restrooms, begrudging self-affirmation, and the grit and glories of every day living. Inspired as much by MF Doom and Lil' Wayne as J. Newsom and Big Dylan, Yoni Wolf's words roll out bent and beautiful, not unlike the musical architecture that sends those words skyward."
And in that way, Why? reminds me of Tom Waits more so then MF Doom. "The Hollows" is low slung and brooding like some Nick Cave dirge, Yoni Wolf's adenoidal vocals clinging to the brain like scabs to skin, the song's hum-along chorus enlightened by dulcet harmonies that are more ominous than charitable. Tales of oily homosexual sex and European robbery are nothing if not depressing, in this way mining Waits' sonic textures if not his lyrical genius. Waits has evolved from barfly to chamber alley cat --Why? wallows in the bottom of his glass. Why? are storytellers, servers of ugly words and dark paeans to personal misery and lost causes. Alopecia is as cryptic as the tale of 23, and nearly as stubbornly defined.
Why?
"The Hollows" (mp3)
from "Alopecia"
(anticon)
More On This Album
Between the Trees, Between Your Knees: Orlando is well known for melting asphalt parking lots, Disneyworld and oranges. The Story And The Song, the debut long player from Orlando quintet Between The Trees hopes to change all that. Veering between cloying boy band harmonies (James Blunt alert!) and fresh scrubbed songwriting, Between The Trees shows considerable promise. A good dose of Why's wickedness would do them a world of good, however.
Between The Trees "White Lines & Red Lights" (mp3)
from "The Story and The Song"
(Bonded Records, Inc) More On This Album
Between The Trees "A Time For Yohe" (mp3)
from "The Story and The Song"
(Bonded Records, Inc) More On This Album
