’d like to believe that Freud was correct in his theory that childhood experiences are the cause of the problems and neuroses in later life. It’s so much simpler. Got an unhealthy desire to watch insects copulate? Chalk it up to your childhood. Rabid gomphipothica (arousal by a fine set of teeth)? Stems from an experience during the teething stage. Foot fetishist? Arrested development of the libido during a childhood stage is to blame. The excuses are endless.


The giant puff of Jewish hair named Jonathan Wolf, aka Yoni, aka Why?, member of the ambient-hop collective cLOUDDEAD and Reaching Quiet, seems fully aware of the power and possibilities of tapping into the inner childhood. “I always wanted to be the voice of the streets / But my father was a rabbi and my mother made beats / I mean books / And the kids from the street always gave me dirty looks.” he raps on “Cold Lunch,” voicing his parents qualms about his career choice since childhood, right before the song bursts into a colorful electronic haze. Even the cover art: there is something essentially childlike about lying face down in the swimming pool, pretending to be dead - waiting until a friend or concerned adult swims towards you so you can spring up and scare them.


“It’s watching your own shadow / On a dirt bike / Get shot in the back under a streetlight / When you arrive at the party / It will not be / Without a bullet in your back / And a poem about death / And of course your Walkman.”


The Anticon rap-roster is notorious for its ambiguous, stream-of-consciousness lyrics full of ill-defined in-jokes and ephemeral vignettes: you weren’t expecting any different from Oaklandazulasylum were you? Through careful listening, one can glean some more lucid illustrations, such as the pubescent I-hate-my-father rantings on the standout, bouncing sing-a-long, “Afterschool America (“I’ll never write a movie with a father character who speaks like an animatronic in an afterschool America / He says ‘We all put our pants on one leg at a time’ / Or, ‘God Dammit Yoni / You never do anything right!’”) which ends with Why? talking about US flags and fossils which sounds vaguely anti-American, but maybe I’ve just been listening to too much talk radio.


“I fucked your girlfriend and I’d probably do it again / You slashed my tires and I’d hope that you would do it again / I stole your records and I haven’t even written them yet / I lost your number but I changed all the locks / And all I feel is guilty as I rubberneck a wreck on the highway.”


Like cLOUDDEAD’s self titled debut, Oaklandazulasylum is similar in its “dirty” production, which fits somewhere between the lo-fi fidelity of Phil Elvrum and the sounds of the new onslaught of warm electronic-emo bands. But unlike cLOUDDEAD, every track on Oaklandazulasylum is, at least musically, accessible and inviting. An exemplary example is “Early Whitney,” which builds upon a simple few guitar picked notes and crescendos into shaken tambourine, crashing cymbals and Why? switching his tone from mellifluous singing to visceral rapping about (a)theism (“That ain’t no God it’s just a burning bush!”), relationships (You’re so sensitive you can feel a hair curl while you sleep...”) and personal visions (“Something about this is clowns with knives.”).


“These are songs to be listening to after I'm dead / When old women start wearing their hair gray / These are songs to help an ant find its shadow / Songs to bump in your land cruiser in 2060 / Top down / Hair blowing in the absence of air."


Speaking of self-depreciation, (another Anticon trait) Why? provides for the masses. There is the woefully-resolved (“Cause I'm not thrilled about anything / I don't waste bets on anything / I'm not thrilled about anything / Anything at all.”), the romantically inept (“Kissing me is a waste of your saliva.”) and the emotionally wasted (“I just don't like my face / ... / I'll say hello you'll say ___ / And it will end."). But it is in the winding, optimistically resigned closer “Ape in Cage with Wire Cutters” that Why? is encapsulated. Why? alternates between imagery of himself as an ape in a cage, with the tools in his hand to free himself, yet at the same time moaning “I’m gonna die young.” If the song is a three minute microcosm of Why?’s current mindset, we all hope the ape utilizes the skills he possesses.


Either way: my inner child has been prodded, and it giggles with delight.