Moh Lhean

Description

The final words sung on the sixth album by WHY? are an apt place to begin: Hold on, whats going on? Because while theres much familiar about the oddly named Moh Lhean mastermind Yoni Wolfs sour-sweet croon, his deadpan poets drawl and ear for stunningly fluid psych-pop-folk-whatever arrangement a great deal has changed in the four years thatve passed since 2012s Mumps, Etc., an LP that honed the bands orchestral precision and self-deprecating swagger to a fine point. Its significant that this is the first fully home-recorded WHY? album since the projects 2003 debut. Made mostly in Wolfs studio and co-produced by his brother Josiah, the result is obsessive, of course, but also intimate, and flush with warmth and looseness. But the biggest transformation is a bit subtler. After years of eying his world, in part, with a cynical squint, Wolf here learns a new mode. While Moh Lhean never stoops to outright optimism, it chronicles our hero finding peace in the unknowing, trading the wry smirk for a holy shrug, and looking past corporeal pain for something more cosmic and, rest assured, equally weird. A low tone opens the album on This Ole King as acoustic pluck and upright bass form a Western bedrock beneath Wolfs fragile voice. But as the song pushes on, the playing gets brighter and the vocal becomes a mantra-like hum inspired by Ali Farka Tourés blues, before rolling into a second part rich with chiming keys and twisting harmony Brian Wilsons kaleidoscopic vision of pop. Moh Lheans gorgeously psychedelic closer, The Barely Blur with Son Lux, puzzles over the nature of existence. But rather than leave us with the macabre chill of death, as many a WHY? LP has, the song dissolves into the infinitethe sound of the Big Bang.