[Check out the video for "Absence and Presents" via Stereogum]

 

Introducing: Divorcee, the new project from Yoni Wolf and his ex-girlfriend Anna Stewart. With their self-titled debut EP, the WHY? frontman steps out of the spotlight to craft all the music himself, while Stewart sets her brutally honest lyrics to each song.

 

The six song EP chronicles Stewart's relationships with men, and is at times a podium for her to proclaim her own perspective about her former relationship with Yoni, a subject well-documented through previous WHY? songs (most notably on the album "Alopecia"). She recounts her relationship anxieties with gut-wrenching honesty and an endearing, confident tone, revealing the feminine counterpoint to WHY? songs like "Good Friday" & "The Hollows". Her lyrics are impactful, unsettling, and sometimes quite deprecating toward her former lover / new bandmate.

 

Avid WHY? fans will notice familiar sonic elements within Divorcee, but this collaboration has also pulled something entirely new and interesting from Yoni. Divorcee emerges as a cathartic yet playful, lo-fi musical celebration of the depths and heights of a failed relationship and the masochistic yet therapeutic reflection that can happen when the participants remain friends.