Tune In Saturdays: Why?

Oakland, California's Why? is a fantastically difficult to classify gem. I've heard them described as hip-pop, but that fails to round up what they are exactly. While there is definitely a delicious mixture of hip hop and pop music, it's somehow a little too good, a little too folksy to fall into even made up categories. Plus, it allows you to be more defiant when you answer the simple question, "What is that you're listening to?". (English teachers, please explain how to punctuate the end of that sentence...jeez)

From Drowned in Sound:

Three’s a doozie: Elliott Smith, Mark Everett (aforementionedish, but allow it), Conor Oberst (not me but many)… these artists are canonised as masterful image-misers, capable of fully rendering an experience through words alone, drawing vivid pictures in the mind’s eye. They’re all up there on pedestals personal, around the world; time’s right for another to join them methinks, and with Alopecia Yoni Wolf has delivered a record perfectly comparable with any so-called best of the collected reference artists listed a few words ago. A collection of songs that sometimes buckle under the weight of their own graphic natures, Why?’s third album is as absorbing an experience as any initiated admirer could have hoped for. Complete newcomers are going to have their heads spun.

Why? - The Vowels Pt 2 (mp3)
Why? - Gemini (video)