WHY ? is also a trio of handsome Cincinnati-born men who fiddle with skins, strings, bells and microphones and present their findings to the listening public. Singer Yoni Wolf grew up the second son to an art book editor and a rabbi. He got his start recording bad poems and sloppy beats on the family synagogue’s 4‑track. In junior high he discovered hip-hop. At art school, he learned how to drop out. Yoni’s brother Josiah played drums at Rabbi Wolf’s worship service as a kid, became a band geek as a teen, and fell in love with Thelonious Monk on his way to study music at University of Cincinnati. Doug McDiarmid would eventually get expelled from that same school for carrying a stun gun, but first he was raised by two French teachers and taught piano while in kindergarten. He also went to high school with the Wolfs, where he played in Steve Miller cover bands.
The brand new album Eskimo Snow is something of a companion piece to last year’s celebrated Alopecia LP. In February of 2007, the WHY ? trio temporarily relocated to Minneapolis and officially inducted Fog players Andrew Broder and Mark Erickson. Recording live as a five-piece, WHY ? created two distinct albums from those sessions : Alopecia, with its taut rhythms and biting wit, and Eskimo Snow, a shadowy and sprawling set that finds Yoni resigned to and ever-awed by those infinite erring bits of existence that make WHY ? what it is. WHY ? drummer JOSIAH WOLF is also the older brother of Yoni Wolf, WHY?‘s frontman. But on March 2, Josiah will get to step out from behind his younger brother’s shadow. That’s when Anticon will release Jet Lag, Josiah’s first solo album of twisted-up psych-pop. Josiah plays all the instruments on the album, but there’s no sibling rivalry here ; Yoni mixed the disc. (from pitchfork.com) Dance + Electro + Pop = POPULAR DAMAGE. Thus was the simple algebra behind the 2007 genesis of the collaborative project between Manchester-born Nadine Raihani and Stephan Hengst. Berlin’s indieand post-rock scene was the common denominator which brought these two forces together in their quest perfect the formula for dance-worthy pop music.
”…a poppier version of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs crossed with Daftpunk!” - SXSW
”…it’s fantastically different and really unique” — Digitalism on Popular Damage’s remix of Taken Away
“It’s all still stuff you can shake a leg to, like EMF. And so Popular Damage manages to breach the chasm between brightly-coloured electro-punk and the huge pop classics once more. Finally!” — Intro
The brand new album Eskimo Snow is something of a companion piece to last year’s celebrated Alopecia LP. In February of 2007, the WHY ? trio temporarily relocated to Minneapolis and officially inducted Fog players Andrew Broder and Mark Erickson. Recording live as a five-piece, WHY ? created two distinct albums from those sessions : Alopecia, with its taut rhythms and biting wit, and Eskimo Snow, a shadowy and sprawling set that finds Yoni resigned to and ever-awed by those infinite erring bits of existence that make WHY ? what it is. WHY ? drummer JOSIAH WOLF is also the older brother of Yoni Wolf, WHY?‘s frontman. But on March 2, Josiah will get to step out from behind his younger brother’s shadow. That’s when Anticon will release Jet Lag, Josiah’s first solo album of twisted-up psych-pop. Josiah plays all the instruments on the album, but there’s no sibling rivalry here ; Yoni mixed the disc. (from pitchfork.com) Dance + Electro + Pop = POPULAR DAMAGE. Thus was the simple algebra behind the 2007 genesis of the collaborative project between Manchester-born Nadine Raihani and Stephan Hengst. Berlin’s indieand post-rock scene was the common denominator which brought these two forces together in their quest perfect the formula for dance-worthy pop music.
”…a poppier version of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs crossed with Daftpunk!” - SXSW
”…it’s fantastically different and really unique” — Digitalism on Popular Damage’s remix of Taken Away
“It’s all still stuff you can shake a leg to, like EMF. And so Popular Damage manages to breach the chasm between brightly-coloured electro-punk and the huge pop classics once more. Finally!” — Intro