Why? has a new album coming out this Fall, called Eskimo Snow. Pitchfork has an interview with Why? frontman Yoni Wolf:

Pitchfork: Is there any reason in particular you decided to release Alopecia first?

YW: Well, upon thinking about it a bunch, it seemed like the correct progression for the development of the character in the songs. That's all I can say, really. I mean, after a while just thinking about the sequence of albums, this made the most sense. This seems like the next step from Alopecia in some kind of thought-life of the character.

We did both albums in Minneapolis in February 2007, and we had 20 songs we decided to record out of all the ones that were in the ether. It started to feel like it was two records. We didn't know, at first. We thought, "Well, maybe it'll be a record and an EP," or whatever. But there started to be some kind of distinction between two different types of songs, I guess— ones that fit on Alopecia and ones that fit on Eskimo Snow. So that's how we started to cut it up. But I wouldn't say that it necessarily had to come after Alopecia. It just seems correct to me, you know?

Pitchfork: How did you decide whether a song was meant for Alopecia or for Eskimo Snow?

YW: There's a few different things. For one, lyrical content. I would say that Alopecia had more of a biting tone, more of somewhat of an angry sarcasm. And this one is a little more resigned, maybe a little more introverted in a way. It's a little more solemn, maybe. That's in terms of lyrical tone. With sound, there were also distinctions. With Alopecia, the drum mics were tighter in on the drums, and the drumming was generally simple and repetitive. Bass a lot of times played with the kick drum. The arrangements were super methodical and intentional and raw. And these songs are raw, too, but the Eskimo Snow songs are a bit more wild, and the drums have more room mics. They're more open. The sound is more open, more live. They're both recorded live, for the most part, but Alopecia was so segmented. All the songs were like, "No, you do exactly that on this or that instrument." And it's the interaction between instruments, what they're not playing, a lot of ghost notes. This album is a little more free in terms of that. People were given a little more freedom to play. So yeah, it sounds a little bit more like players in a room, I think.

Stoked!