It hardly seems fair to call WHY? a post-rap or prog-rap outfit, when one listen of new single ‘This Ole King’ calls to mind Animal Collective, Four Tet, Mewithoutyou, and Local Natives in the short space of 4.5 stunning minutes. The Yoni Wolf of legendary Anticon hip-hop experimentalists cLOUDDEAD disappeared some time ago into the mountaintop fog of WHY?’s mystical, folky melodies, but this year’s new LP ‘Moh Llean’ sounds like the fog has dissipated into glorious, sunny panorama, a clarity that stretches for miles. The album is unabashedly beautiful, Wolf his most focused and adventurous in years; the sound of WHY? has stayed the same in many ways, but ‘Moh Llean’ is an unexpected revival, a refresher course on everything that has been exciting and enveloping about Wolf’s journey for the past fifteen years or so. Call it post-folk, call it fantastical hip-hop in slow motion, but an opportunity to see WHY? in the flesh is not to be missed.

Tue 6 June, 7.30pm at Hare and Hounds, High Street, Kings Heath B14 7JZ £15  www.skiddle.com