ISVOLT - A Disaro Witch House Compilation

The Witch House deconstruction posts (Part 1 and Part 2) proved popular with readers, and resulted in contact from God Don’t Like It; a promoter, club night, label and general seeker of experimental and odd music. They heralded the unholy birth of ISVOLT, a nine act compilation from the mind of Robert Disaro (head of Disaro Records) featuring different takes on the witch house sub-genre from self-distributing artists.

I’m still in the undecided camp on witch house, despite listening to many of the genres which contribute to it’s core sound; stuck between the witch lovers and witch haters, I have approached with caution. To help me make up my mind and because the nature of this blog means new features can be added just whenever I feel like it, I’m introducing a new aspect for special review requests - guest DJ reviewers! For this one, and because he was generous enough to lend his time and ears, the Niallist stuck around in cyberspace to delve through the occult and weird with me. Personally, I come from a background of industrial, dark metal and techno, and the Niallist has shown love for experimental and weirdo electronica amongst his house, acid and disco yearnings, so we figured that together we could reach the apt witch house head-space.

ISVOLT - A Disaro Witch House Compilation (Disaro Records)
Release Date: 6th of December 2010
Formats: CD, 12” LP, Digital

1. †‡† (Ritualzz) - Misery Walk

Lo-Q: Ah, like hearing an 80s goth single go through a blender; all fuzz and lamenting guitar wails with an odd rhythm reminiscent of spicatto techniques. Eventually some lo-fi dubstep influences appear and it starts to sound like a damaged set breakdown that sprawls on, but that American accented voice sounds like a nippy complainer.

Niallist: So this is witch-house? Well, it's not very house-y is it? I thought it might be bitch house's evil older aunty but apparently not. I'm not feeling any housiness about this at all, but I am getting a witch vibe. Witch-hop might be a better term. Or Witch-no. Obviously these people are not as adept at making up spurious genre names as we are.

2. Party Trash - Sky Clad

Lo-Q: A bit like Gary Numan on a dark day (which is sayin’ something), Party Trash applies the degraded theme to its beats, rendering them broken for an anti-rhythm thunderkick of drums. That anti-rhythm feeling prevails through a lot of witch house I’ve heard so far. Drones, deep bass, a hint of prog-rock - it gets a bit confusing when the fast, arpeggiated electro dives in.

Niallist: I wouldn't be able to drop any of this in a club, that's for sure. I might be able to use it on a Norave mixtape though. To me this is like a less annoying Sleigh Bells. It seems the producers have thought about the textures of the noise elements more carefully than Sleigh Bells, and it reminds me of 90s groups like Medicine. Gaze-hop would be a more accurate genre title, but it would probably not go down too well in the world of rap.

3. Fostercare - Cold Light

Lo-Q: I’ve been having flashes of DJ Hell mixes throughout this compilation, and Fostercare holds the most similarity with its space age electronica. Not to mention the DJ Shadow and Fischerspooner (if they turned industrial) elements. This is actually scarily close to the doodles of noise I’ve been making on my Nintendo DS Korg, further helped by the bottom-of-the-well rhythms which sound like they’ve been recorded in an adjacent room - this is going in time with the beats filtering up from my downstairs neighbours. ‘Cold Light’ is stripped of the fuzz but not the decay.

Niallist: Fostercare is a great name for a band, and ‘Cold Light’ is a fitting name for this tune. I like the textures of the shoegazey elements so far, and the vocal, which I can't tell is either resampled and chopped, or deliberately badly recorded. Doing things badly on purpose, with a good reason, can be great. And this track has a more interesting beat pattern than the other two so far.

4. //TENSE// - Versus Man

Lo-Q: I’m not so sure this is witch house really - it can easily be captured as industrial Nitzer Ebb style, doing the Bladerunner theme. The chuggy techno hi-hat, the vocals, the industrial grunge, and even taints of Ministry towards the end. This would sit fairly comfortably on an industrial mix - the metal part of me can’t help having a soft spot for this track.

Niallist: Ooh, I like this already - I'm into industrial clanking noises. And finally! A 4/4 beat! Well almost. This is as close to how I imagined this music would sound, though to be honest it does bear more than just a passing resemblance to late 80s/early 90s industrial. Which is not a bad thing. It's a bit of a departure from the rest of the record though.

5. Modern Witch - Your Life a Movie

Lo-Q: Rob Zombie would be proud of the b-movie style drone start. Echoed voices, numb, lispy American male vocals, repeating ‘Julia Roberts smiling a lot’, which is an eerie concept on its own. I don’t know why, but I think a lot of witch house artists have all sat down and watched Heathers and 80s sci-fi, and then set about making electronica. I think there’s a definite opiate feel, but it doesn’t fit with the chopped and screwed sound.

Niallist: This is maybe the best so far. I like all the elements, the beat, the noise and the droney vocal. Droney vocals can be hit and miss (nobody does it better than Farah) but these vocals have just the right mix of detachment and cynicism to work. Pity about the lyrics though. This really does make me think of Italians Do It Better turning their hand to noisy downtempo rather than electro-disco. Great outro too.

6. Mater Suspiria Vision - Ritualz of the Crack Witches

Lo-Q: Mater tend to use more of the ‘classic’ sounds of dance music - claps, kicks, bass - but as if testing them out and pressing the button for the hell of it. The sound is definitely screwed, but it does tend to ‘drag’ on though (har har).

Niallist: Ok, from the name alone I get the feeling this act was assembled to make some filler for this compilation. And sadly the music bears that out - which is a shame cos the names ARE great. All the musical elements you'd now expect are here. This makes me think someone has a vested interest in selling this genre as a concept. And that conversely makes me wonder who will be the Beatles of witch house?

Lo-Q: These are actually one of the more successful witch house acts, but I agree - my preference is for Mater’s remix work.

Niallist: Oh wow, so I was totally wrong! Indeed, perhaps MSV are the witch house Beatles.

7. Horse MacGyver - Nod

Lo-Q: Definitely getting a 90s dark metal feel from this one, with badly wired keyboard drones. The freaked out samples, beat misdirections and clash of instrument wails all fit but there’s a hip-hop swagger to it. I think maybe you’re ‘witch house’ if you say you are; a kind of ‘I think, therefore I am’ deal.

Niallist: Ah, I'm feeling this one! It has elements of John Carpenter soundtracks and skronk going on too, which is broadening up the sound a bit. And the name Horse MacGyver makes me think of Horse Rotorvator by Coil. Which makes sense as a reference. I like the very long feedback delay on the end but they killed it by just chopping it off, they should have stuck with it until it totally faded out, even if that took another 17 hours. Witches need to stand by their convictions.

Lo-Q: Skronk? What genres are you chucking in here now?!

Niallist: Skronk is a sub-genre of post-punk. It makes free jazz sound like N Sync.

8. White Ring - IxC999

Lo-Q: This is thicker hip-hop drag, spiked with glock sound effects and almost childish sing-song vocals. I’d love to see the kind of dance moves people are pulling out to this. And I mean proper dancing; this ain’t an excuse to go back to goth shoe-gazing, which is only appropriate if you own particularly great shoes.

Niallist: I like this one too, it's actually pretty crunky, and the squeaky feedback on the vocal at the start is really pretty cool. Wow, is that a steeldrum I can hear in there somewhere? Colour me impressed! Or maybe I am over-reacting after the limited sound palate used up to this point? Whatever, I like this, I like the rhythm of the beats and the vocal, it creates a juxtaposition with the noise that is cool. So, how long before M.I.A. jumps on the witch house bandwagon?

9. Raw Moans - Nectarine

Lo-Q: Um, is this in the wrong section? I can only perceive this as dreamy electronica over a hip-hop beat. Not as dark as the others, it reminds me of a Smashing Pumpkins ditty.

Niallist: This is not my favourite track on the album, but this genre now begins to make more sense through this track - it's kids that have been listening to crunk and southern hip-hop for the last few years, and trying to take that basic premise somewhere dark and twisted. I don't know how much mileage this genre has, as I can see there being a backlash pretty soon, but there's a few good tracks on this album. But, really, guys, come on... "Witch House"? Even dream-hop would be a better name.

Lo-Q: A rose by any other name, and all that..


--
To launch ISVOLT on the UK shores, Mater Suspiria Vision and Fostercare play their debut UK show in London’s Soho at The Den on 6th December, organised by Bite London and God Don’t Like It.

ISVOLT - A Disaro Witchhouse Compilation can be acquired on CD or 12” through relatively normal methods - not a spell or rune in sight - by attending occult shops as Rough Trade, Pure Groove, Piccadilly Records, Norman Records, Amazon, and HMV.

http://www.robotelephant.co.uk/

Genre deconstruction: Witch House Pt 2

In our last deconstruction we looked at the origins of witch house, and now look further into the artists behind the sound and how they interpret it.

Houston hip-hop drowsy beats provide an underlay to the sound, but the additions are down to the individual artists and include goth, electro, dub, ambient, house, chill-out, synth-pop, psychedelia, 80s, indie and more. Vocals can be present but are used as ethereal side-notes or ghostly voices and the occult themes linger throughout. There’s also a visual trend amongst the artist names also, and commentators have been quicker to pick up on the deliberate use of symbols as band naming conventions - think Prince () then times it by ten, and you can get the unsearchable Google nightmare known as witch house acts.

Journalist Tom Ewing commented that “artificial scarcity is one way of restoring context to music - releasing it on non-digital formats, or never recording certain tracks. In the case of witch house, the scene’s penchant for non-Googleable names (oOoOO or Gr†ll Gr†ll) may be an attempt to create scarcity.” Scarcity has been a known technique used in the techno community to create limited exclusiveness (and handily raise releases to collector item status) and witch house employs it to carve out an underground tunnel with limited entrances. Like something out of a fantasy film, you find yourself trying to identify the passages with geometric shapes, symbols, punctuation; there is a distinct lack of actual words. It's an enforced restriction; perhaps to keep out naysayers, perhaps to keep in exclusivity.

If you want to find witch house artists online you’ll find them, but it’s not a 3 second job - the subtle message is ‘we are not easy access’. And this is also reflected in the actual music - the hooks aren’t instant and the style doesn’t fit in with our natural urge for catchy beats.

The Labels:

Houston’s Disaro and Tri Angle are two of the main ‘witch house’ stables, but the latter is less easy with the ‘drag’ term and more readily embraces the listenable styles of witch house - less distortion and more melodic catch (Balam Acab, oOoOO). Disaro, situated in the middle of purple drank heritage country has reached out to the chopped and ‘screwed’ sounds of witch house / drag artists (Salem, White Ring, Mater Suspiria Vision, Fostercare, //TENSE//, Modern Witch, Gr†ll Gr†ll, /// ▲▲▲ \\\, †‡†).

Some of the Artists and their Sounds:

oOoOO - more commonly known as Christopher Dexter Greenspan, a self-confessed Burial follower. Ethereal, dubstep, mainstream rap / hip-hop, drag.

MP3s for download: NoSummr4u / Seaww


 
Balam Acab - Alec Koone, got his break over Myspace after being picked up by Tri Angle Records. Dubstep, found samples, drone, low-end.

MP3s for download: See Birds / Heavy Living Things



Creep - Lauren Dillard and Lauren Flax also signed to Tri Angle; Flax is already known on the house circuit, and as Fischerspooner’s tour DJ. Influences come from the likes of Hyperdub, house, UK bass, ethereal dub, pop.



White Ring - Bryan Kurkimilis and Kendra Malia are signed to Disaro, situated in the middle of Houston’s drag scene. Hip-hop and gangster rap are strong influences, but the dark synth pop, horror sounds and weirded-out vocals provide a fuller embrace to the witch house thematics.

MP3 for download: icx999



Salem - John Holland, Heather Marlatt and Jack Donoghue have just released their debut LP on IAMSOUND, composed of sluggish hip-hop, nails down a chalk board samples, fuzzy percussion, and some serious dubstep lifting. A bit like dubstep washed up on the beach as a corroded, raggy corpse.



Mater Suspiria Vision - drones aplenty, reverbed to fuck and incessant knockings of beats. Reminds me of a restrained Atari Teenage Riot without the shouty screaming.



ℑ⊇≥◊≤⊆ℜ - a member of Mater Suspiria Vision, her remix of Lady Gaga reconfirms for me that witch house may be more effective as a remix tool. A corrosion of the present rather than creating from destruction. In regards to the name - I give up, I think pronounciation may involve tongue removal.


LADY GAGA - Alejandro (ℑ⊇≥◊≤⊆ℜ of Mater Suspiria Vision ZOMBIE RAVE REMIX) from Mater Suspiria Vision on Vimeo.

Gr†ll Gr†ll - Atmospheric, similar to choral drones, distinct lack of beats on occasion.



Modern Witch - Bit of creepy electro, playing with softer noises to create psychedelia, beaten on by off-kilter percussion.




Pwin ▲▲Teaks - More like drowning in a sea of distortion, hearing sounds filtered through salt water and very little rhythm.



Tearist - Darker electro pop, there are discernible hooks to grasp onto.



Fostercare - An obvious disciple of Burial taking the name from a Burial track. Clearer vocals, a faster beat, kind of like dubstep turning into spoken-word electro.

MP3 for download: Heat High.




Silent Diane - A male and female duo playing syrupy codeine electronica!

MP3s for download: Harmonikai



twYIYZoNe - more drones, echoes; like trying to remember half-speed dubstep in a dream.





†‡† - I believe this is pronounced ritualz, but then again I may not have decoded right. At this point in the article I've seen enough freaky films to be confused over whether I am actually in an Italian art-house death dirge. Dirge is also a fitting word for their music, appended to purple drank electro-hop (see I'm just making my own genres up here now).

  


And here's some more artists for you to peruse, with free downloads! 

xix - MP3 for download: Deep Void

///▲▲▲\\\ - MP3 for download: Spit Shine

After all that deconstruction it’s still difficult to summarise in one sentence, but I’ll do my best: building on a ‘screwed’ hip-hop style popularised by Houston rappers in the 90s, witch house is almost completely unrelated to house music and cosier with occult or goth-themed, lo-fi, distorted bass-heavy rhythms with synth pop slathers.

I am genre-spent.

Genre deconstruction: Witch House Pt 1

First rumblings about the ‘witch house’ genre began spreading on the internet just before Summer 2010 and had finally filtered through to mainstream media such as The Guardian by August. Before it’s even fully taken off, the internet naysayers and musos have begun to rubbish the genre as nonsense and already subverted by advances / devolutions in already established fields.

It’s been listed as goth, library music, drone, doom ambient, ghost trance, glo-fi, post-punk, hauntology, ghost drone, spectral pop, drag, were house, haunted house, and an extension of chill-wave: either way it appears the leaders of the genre-coining movement, or the bands themselves, have been channelling Nathan Barley for inspiration.

It could also be considered Facebook or Myspace music; a genre growing from disparate groups of people who never meet but produce and share ghostly influenced music - like electro-pop in a morphine slurry. First glances show a collective of young artists, and I suspect so young that the full extent of the 80s and 90s music scenes have bypassed them in a rather concrete way. The term ‘drag’ is supposed to reference a Houston sound perpetuated in the 90s by DJ Screw and similar crews: the major addition to their sluggish music was the strong influence of cough-syrup codeine and fizzy juice known as purple drank - it frequently led to deaths, including DJ Screw at the age of 29, who turned down record deals to remain with his purple drank crew.

The music, his crew and codeine came first, and he remained in his working-class lifestyle downing syrup mixed with Sprite until his death. Drug abuse was experienced as culture, and the culture drove on the music - a move away into the shiny world of record deals could have signed the death knell for purple drank beats, and they remained true to their addiction and music vision.


The witch house band Salem jumped on DJ Screw’s legacy and kept the chopped-up, sluggish and ethereal quality while working in synths and vocals along a Boris Karloff theme. Other artists chuck in electro-rock, or dub, or ambient, but the genre seems entirely based on themes of the occult and the paranormal, albeit through a psychedelic aperture. A side-look at dubstep suggests the likes of Burial helped to add some ethereal inspiration to the genre. .

One of the labels behind the witch house sound is Tri Angle, founded by Robin Carolan. He has been quoted as saying: “Hip-hop and rnb, in essence, is a commercial kind of music. But when you get down to the nitty gritty of it, it’s sonically at least really strange music. And there’s so much you can do with that. I’m surprised it’s taken so long for it to start being experimented with by people who aren’t in that world.”

And for me, that’s the crux of it - “people who aren’t in that world”. Houston’s drag hip-hop / street-rap artists in the 90s ran a merry-go-round with codeine syrup abuse, plenty of whom didn’t survive their ‘muse’, and they were predominantly from poorer African-American backgrounds. Witch house or whatever you want to call it, comes from people who saw little of that era first hand simply due to age differences, and they come from markedly different backgrounds - in some way it reminds me of a marketing plan to extract a culture-specific genre/style and tweak it for the mass market. Strip off the syrup abuse, add in genres tapping a definite trend, and it is reborn with little contemplative thought for the founding fathers who did not survive long enough to see purple drank music without the purple drank aspect.

Tom Ewing of The Guardian disagrees, suggesting: “What witch house tells me is that genres now aren't exercises in innovation or marketing, so much as ways of framing an experience. And if you won't feel open to that experience, your investigation of it won't get far.”

So, underground trend marketing or framing an experience? Stay tuned to this blog for the second part in Witch House deconstruction, where we delve into the artists, their naming conventions and their different interpretations of the sound.