WHY? today announced their eighth full-length album The Well I Fell Into will be released on August 2nd, 2024. The beloved band—led by Cincinnati songwriter Yoni Wolf—has also shared the soaring, diaristic first single “The Letters, etc.” “This song was partially written for a year or two but the words to finish it just wouldn’t come until some further life experiences led it into its current incarnation,” explains Wolf. “Though potentially filled with paranoid conjecture, it is also a song of acceptance, with only best wishes upon embarking on a difficult long-term estrangement. T’ruah. Love and let live.”The Well I Fell Into is Wolf at his most cohesive and poignant: an autopsy of heartbreak, the album charts the ups and downs of a devastating breakup while trading bitterness for healing. Self-released on Waterlines, his new label that follows in the footsteps of Anticon—the trailblazing artist-run collective he co-founded—its 14 tracks stand as the band’s prettiest and most immediate work yet.
WHY? today also announced an extensive North American tour, which includes stops at NYC’s Bowery Ballroom (August 22nd) and LA’s Lodge Room (September 14th). A full itinerary is listed below and tickets will go on-sale this Wednesday, May 22nd,
For nearly three decades, WHY? have thrived in subverting expectations. Across seven unpredictable and adventurous studio albums, the band has stretched the fringes of psychedelic pop, hip-hop, and electronic music. No matter the genre experiments and thematic departures, their discography is remarkably consistent, anchored by Wolf’s disarming lyrical transparency. His writing is provocative, self-lacerating, and always considered, coming from a place of blunt emotional openness. “Making a WHY? album is an opportunity for me to button up a period of my life,” Wolf explains. “I’m bad at realising how I feel or how something is affecting me in the moment. Things just sit inside me, but writing is a way to really take stock.” Though the dissolution of a years-long relationship inspired Wolf to start writing, he considers The Well I Fell Intoautofiction, a chance to interrogate his grief and his journey to acceptance rather than to air out the real-life details of a painful loss or pick at emotional scabs. “This is not a bitter kiss off,” he says. “While the songwriting was cathartic, I can see my life beyond some story or mythology I’ve cornered myself into artistically. I’m not getting stuck in sentiment like I might have in my 20s.”
Though every WHY? album since 2012’s Mumps, Etc. was recorded at various home studios, Wolf and his bandmates Josiah Wolf, Doug McDiarmid, and Andrew Broder tracked The Well I Fell Into with Brian Joseph (Sufjan Stevens, Bon Iver) at Eau Claire, Wisconsin’s Hive Studio. The move resulted in compelling and accessible arrangements that enhance the strong hooks grounding the songs. “On this one, I’m very interested in classic songwriting,” explains Wolf, who also enlisted a cast of collaborators to flesh out these recordings, including Gia Margaret, Finom’s Macie Stewart, Lala Lala’s Lillie West, Serengeti, and Ada Lea. “I want my songs to be able to be played unadorned by just one person and still hold up. Any production frills should only serve to elevate the song further without being relied upon to tell the story.”
The Well I Fell Into is an ultimately hopeful record. While it deals with messy emotions, it tackles them with a disarmingly lucid candor and a profound grace. There are no external villains and no wallowing, just a frank dissection of the past and a diligence to move forward. For that, the album stands near the top of the WHY? catalog as a document of an artist pushing through and finding some sense of peace.
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