WHY?, Restiform Bodies

Wait a minute. Wasn't anticon records' WHY? just here, oh, five months ago? Yes. And at the very same venue, no less. But hey, for those who missed WHY? last time, here's a second chance to appreciate Alopecia live, which, as I said back in April, is not only WHY?'s most accessible album, but the band's most polished. And they didn’t sacrifice Yoni Wolf's offbeat, cynical lyrical stylings in the name of pop, either; it's just that, as a whole, Alopecia is much catchier than any album WHY?'s produced thus far. More notably, WHY? tours with Restiform Bodies, an anticonian weird hop project that, New Wave influences and abstract rhyme-writing notwithstanding, doesn't stray quite as far from traditional hip hop styles than most other anticon artists' work of late. Restiform Bodies is a trio of childhood friends - that is, Telephone Jim Jesus' George Chadwick on synth, percussionist beat producer Matt Valerio (of Bomarr) and songwriter and MC extraordinaire David Bryant - who, after changing their band name from Passage to Restiform Bodies, put out their long-awaited anticon debut, TV Loves You Back, on September 30. Which makes me wonder if maybe Restiform Bodies shouldn't be headlining, since they're the ones with a brand-new record and all.
Fri., Oct. 3, 7:30 p.m., 2008