Welcome to part deux of our Witch House 101 seminar! In the first part of this article, we looked at Witch House (aka “Drag”, aka “Ghost Drone”, aka “Whothehellcares”) from the 10,000ft level, discussing the general sonic philosophy and various influences behind the Witch House sound, as well as exploring the genre’s bipolar relationship with the internet that helped spawn its success.
In this second part of the series, we are going to look a bit more closely at the various labels and artists that actually make up the loosely-defined genre, list some of its “essential releases”, and discuss some of the highly anticipated new releases coming in 2010.
LABELS
While I wouldn’t go so far as to call Acephale a “witch house” label, they did, in a way, help introduce the world to the genre. The label’s very first release in 2008 was the now-classic SALEM EP “Yes I Smoke Crack”. SALEM is often looked at as the “founders” of the Witch House sound (or at least one of the key influences for many of the newer artists entering the genre), and this was their first physical offering to the outside world. While the sounds on this EP are very far from the SALEM we know today, the key elements of chopped-and-screwed beats, highly effected vocals and creepy atmospheric synthesizers are all there. Also, it introduced the earliest version of the song that is pretty much a Witch House anthem, “Redlights”.
2) TRI ANGLE
Tri Angle was started in early 2010 by Robin Carolan, a writer for the 20 Jazz Funk Greats blog (which has recently gained a great deal of attention as a crucial partner in Pitchfork’s “Altered Zones” collective). While Tri Angle has released very few albums and has a pretty minimalist web presence (its website is about as barebones as it gets, with just links to artist MySpace pages and distributors), it has quickly become one of the hottest labels in Witch House and one of the most discussed labels in all of underground music in 2010. I’m sure it doesn’t hurt that their releases are distributed by famous German minimalist techno label Kompakt.
Carolan is one of the more outspoken folks in the Witch House scene. Many have seemed desperate to avoid defining or promoting the music altogether, preferring to keep it as an anarchist, underground movement. This dream probably jumped the shark when Pitchfork profiled the genre in a recent article called “Ghosts In the Machine”.
Preferring the moniker “drag” over “witch house” to define the sound, Carolan describes it as “a witching-hour vision of Cocteau Twins dream pop, meshed with the soundtrack to a particularly angsty Gregg Araki film full of Gen X shoegazer atmospherics and industrial beats, brought bang up to the date by the influence of raw hip hop mutations like chopped and screwed and juke.” Pretty astute and accurate, if you ask me.
Tri Angle currently boasts the most impressive roster of up-and-coming witch house artists, including Balam Acab (aka Alec Koone) of Ithaca, NY and oOoOO (aka Dexter Greenspan) of San Francisco, each of whom are releasing two of the most widely anticipated albums this year.
3) DISARO
Another key witch house label is DISARO, started in 2007 by a Houston, TX based DJ named Robert Disaro. While the label has been around for a few years, it didn’t start releasing witch house artists until early 2010, with a string of key releases by key genre artists like Mater Suspiria Vision, GR†LLGR†LL, oOoOO, Modern Witch and /// ▲▲▲ \\\ .
Mostly due to Disaro, Houston has become a surprising hub of activity for live performance by Witch House artists, and like-minded industrial/dance musicians who lie just outside the genre (i.e. White Car, //TENSE//, etc.)
Richard Thompson – Dream Attic
Since the ‘60s, when he helped Fairport Convention fuse rock and British folk music, Richard Thompson has been one of our time’s mightiest guitar gunslingers. His style is rarely predictable, making connections to bagpipe drone, free-jazz harmonics and psychedelic studio effects (pretty cool how he can sound like he’s playing a “backward” solo while going full speed ahead).
But he’s relatively under-celebrated as a great soloist, in part because he puts an equal if not greater premium on songwriting, often muting his instrumental capabilities to serve his literate, lacerating songs. At times this has led to albums that can appear a little dry, easy to respect but short on the kind of goosebump-inducing peaks he’s capable of conjuring in concert.
With “Dream Attic” (Shout! Factory), he attacked that problem by recording his latest batch of originals on the road with his touring band. Coincidental or not, the setting opens things up considerably for Thompson the guitarist, his songs gaining an immediacy and intensity that sometimes gets refined away in his sometimes too-careful studio recordings. Read the full review
Disturbed – Asylum
Don’t let this first track fool you. The album opens in a rather disappointing fashion with “Remnants”, which is an extremely weak and effortless instrumental offering. As one of the few rock bands with a defining instrumental capability at their disposal, Disturbed really disappoints with this one, as the intended opening to “Asylum”. Sure, it might pay some homage to their senior rock inspirations, but it pales in comparison. It’s one thing to include nearly a minute of near-silence somewhere on the album as a brief respite, but I find it to be another thing entirely when you start your album off with nearly a minute of near-silent filler.
Luckily, “Asylum” quickly kicks up the gritty bass drum and guitar work that I’ve come to know and expect from the band. My interest is rewarded: the album really starts with Draiman passionately intoning, “Release me!”. At first, I didn’t like this track. It felt a bit too one-dimensional for an opening track, but after listening to it a few more times with my system turned way up, I began to peel back the layers. This one is definitely for fans of Indestructible. I found myself repeating the hook to myself after listening: “And the loneliness is killing me.” Don’t be too surprised if this hits your radio – HARD – as the second single. Read the full review
Jenny & Johnny – I’m Having Fun Now
Jenny & Johnny represent a different situation. In this couple, the woman is the powerhouse and the man, though forceful in his own ways, rises to her challenges. Jenny Lewis and Johnathan Rice have been creatively and romantically involved for half a decade; the lady, one of indie’s most successful thinking beauties, is the bigger star. Maybe that’s why this project, though lighthearted, has some of the prickliness of a real day-to-day relationship. The title may be “I’m Having Fun Now,” but there’s room for wisecracks, bitterness and worry amid the lovey-dovey stuff. Read the full review
Welcome to Witch House....
Yes, I know that Tanner already brought attention to this new genre on the Pure Pop blog back in April. However, seeing as Witch House has kind of been exploding lately (or at least making the transition from the web underground to the fringe, just-at-ground-level mainstream), I thought it might be an appropriate time to do an overview for those not in the know. This part of the article will deal with the origins of Witch House, exploring the genres and artists that influenced it, and discussing the genre’s conflict relationship with the internet. In part two, we will explore some of the genre’s key artists and labels, as well as discuss some of the exciting new Witch House releases coming in the late summer & early fall.
As is true of many genres in their infancy, Witch House is still trying to define itself, on many different levels. There’s even a lot of disagreement as to what to call this style of music (which in itself is pretty schizophrenic, as we’ll discuss later). While it has been tagged as “drag”, “ghost drone” and several other names (some unpronounceable), the brand of “Witch House” has really stuck for some reason. Most likely, because it captures the dichotomy of the genre quite accurately and succinctly–dark, yet danceable.
So now that we’ve decided on a name (at least for the sake of this article), what is “Witch House”? That, my friends, is a very difficult question to answer. There’s a lot of disagreement as to what constitutes the “Witch House” sound, and you often find artists who label themselves as witch house being accused of not being appropriate for the genre, while several key figures and founders of the witch house “movement” have tried their best to distance themselves from the tag altogether.
A good reason for this is that a big part of the Witch House philosophy thrives on the being anti-genre specific, sometimes even anti-auteur. It’s one of the most post-modern popular music formats, in that its combines a wide variety of genres (ranging from coldwave to post-punk goth rock to dubstep to experimental hip hop to lo-fi noise to mainstream pop and beyond) into a grand pastiche of sounds. While the end result is usually always dark and beat heavy, releases by different Witch House artists seldom sound even remotely similar. Even tracks by the same artist on the same album can sound incredibly disparate and eclectic.
Further expanding this concept of anonymity and collaboration is Witch House’s penchant for remixes and unpronounceable band names. The remixes certainly show an allegiance to the long history of sampling and collaborative reinvention in hip-hop production. In particular, there seems to be an allegiance (seen most blatantly with acts like SALEM and Balam Acab) to the “chopped and screwed” style of DJ Screw, with samples and rhythms slowed to completely warp the source material into a narcotic acoustic fog.
Here’s the final installment of my picks for top reissued albums of 2009. Enjoy & have a great 2010!
3) Eliane Radigue “Vice Versa”/”Triptych”
I love drone. I love the complexity masquerading as simplicity. I love the physicality of a live drone performance, the ethereal purr of sine wave massaging my entire body. I love how the monotony becomes hypnotic and meditative, to the point that I can forget where I am or that I’m even listening to a piece of music. I love where the drone takes me.
Eliane Radigue, born in Paris in 1932, was a drone pioneer. A wife and mother of three, Radigue studied piano and composing at an early age, and became enraptured with minimalist music after hearing a radio broadcast of musique concrete by Pierre Schaeffer in the early 1950s, who later became her mentor. Despite her studies and studio work in the 1960s, she did not start her own career until the 1970’s, with minimalist explorations utilizing tape loops and Arp synthesizers.
Radigue’s work has influenced artists as diverse as Greg Davis and Stephen O’Malley of doom metal band Sunn O))), yet prior to the late 90s, she only had a handful of physical releases, most of which were in very limited runs. Her popularity amongst fans of experimental music grew quickly when the wonderful Table of the Elements record label released her Adnos trilogy, consisting of three long-form, perfect drone pieces, and soon her new fans were clamoring more.
It takes a special label to take on a major and important drone release. While fans of drone have increased exponentially over the past decade (possibly because post-rock and doom drone bands have made minimalism hip again), there is still not a large audience for such a release. At the same time, work like Radigue’s rivals some of the best of minimalist art, so it would be a shame to see one of her masterpieces released on CD-R with a poorly designed cover, while even the worst of Frank Stella’s paintings still hang on international gallery walls and command millions at auction.
The special label that took up the job was, quite fittingly, Important Records, a label known for quality control in all senses of the word. Important released two of Radigue’s masterworks this year, “Vice Versa, etc.” and “Triptych”, and presented the pieces with the utmost respect, including extensive liner notes and elegant, minimalist cover art befitting the music itself.
“Vice Versa, etc.”, the earlier of the two works, was originally recorded in 1970 and was composed only of tape loop feedback. While the album was distributed upon its initial recording, only ten hand-numbered and signed magnetic tape copies were created, along with instructions to the listener on how to listen to the pieces. The options included one at a time, both at the same time, forwards or backwards and at various speeds. While the CD medium of the reissue makes such experimental listening difficult, Important did include two discs in this release: the first of the three tracks played forward, and the second with them in reverse. You can always rip the CDs to a digital format and experiment with speed variations as well. It is quite the interactive listening experience.
“Triptych” was recorded in 1978, when Radigue’s instrument of choice changed from the tape loop to the Arp 2500 analog synthesizer. A return to music after a brief immersion in Tibetan Buddhism and meditation, “Triptych” is truly a sonic meditation in itself, with an enhanced focus on subtlety and masterful patience. If you’re new to Radigue (or drone in general), I highly recommend “Triptych” as a jumping-off point.
2) Oneohtrix Point Never, “Betrayed in the Octagon”
I’m a firm believer in the connections between dualities. Not because I’m a New Age mystic/Eastern philosophies type (far from it actually), but because it’s just an incredibly obvious part of everyday life. Love and hate are connected simply by being a dichotomy of strong emotion– just ask the hands of Radio Raheem. How many times have you met somebody that just irritates you so much that you just can’t stop talking about them? And then soon the anger turns to intrigue, and then understanding, and soon they’re your best friend.
The same thing happened to me when I first heard Oneohtrix Point Never’s “Betrayed in the Octagon”. While I was immediately drawn to the darker ambient tracks on the album, I was immediately repelled by tracks like “Behind the Bank”. See, I was born in the 1980s, and all of the bad music and art that came out of that period. To me, “Behind the Bank” sounded like the generic keyboard kitsch that was used as background music on the Preview Guide channel. I had spent most of the 90s trying to surround myself with high art: Bergman films, Rothko paintings, and John Cage compositions. While I loved and respected pop artists like Warhol and, to a lesser degree, later post-modern artists, I never was able to believe that they actually liked the works that they were using in their pastiche. It was all ironic, tongue-in-cheek; there’s no way that this work could be paying homage, only putting up a mirror to reflect the ugliness of modern consumerist society.
What bothered me most about “Behind the Bank” was that the tongue was nowhere near the cheek. This seemed like a true love letter to the sounds of early 80s elevator muzak, the Quarter Pounder with Cheese of music. How could anyone want to pay tribute to such garbage and waste obvious talent by playing and recording it? Why would anyone want to listen to it?
Stewing in my distaste, I couldn’t get the song out of my head, with its clichéd synth tones and pitch bends. Sure there was a elegance to the composition, and an emotional pull. But that wasn’t what kept it coming back into my mind like déjà vu, a long forgotten collective memory. It was the fact that it was a collective memory, at least for those of us who grew up in the 80s. It was a reclaiming of the things that defined us as children, all of the things that we were taught were low and base and garbage and deserved only to be forgotten in a forced amnesia. John Carpenter movie soundtracks and public access TV shows on VHS and Atari 2600 and hot pink and synth pop. These were all supposed to be embarrassments, a blip in the timeline of technology and culture than needed to be forgotten and moved past.
“Behind the Bank” was quite simply a rebellion against such mindsets, and a reclamation of our shared cultural history. It was ok to admit that we had a soft spot for these sounds, because these were the sounds that raised us. They were a part of us, and saying that we hated them amounted in a way to saying that we hated ourselves. Once I accepted this fact, “Behind the Bank” became a revelation to me, an opportunity to look back on a time in my life that I thought I had lost and, for the first time, be proud of it.
1) The Beatles discography (stereo and mono)
Ok, I’ll admit it–I bought into the hype. I bought into it hard actually, listening to nearly nothing besides the Beatles reissues for the first month after they came out. Is it because I was a huge Beatles fan? No. Was it because I never heard the Beatles and this music was all fresh and new to me? No. Was it because I’m a sucker for a gimmick? Partly.
What really sold me on these reissues more than anything was simple opportunity. It was an opportunity to revisit albums that I hadn’t put on in years because they were simply too ubiquitous and familiar to even need to be played. The Beatles have long been one of those bands that I didn’t feel a need to actively listen to anymore, and I think that is true for a lot of people. Not only can you listen to them on the radio anytime you want to (try scanning the AM and FM dials for five minutes and NOT finding at least one Beatles tune), their lyrics are forever imprinted on our minds, their melodies encoded into the double-helix of our DNA. Why listen to the Beatles when we are eating, breathing, walking, talking and living the Beatles and the culture they created?
There’s a definite downside to this outlook though, and it’s that while we “know” the Beatles, not actively revisiting the albums in full from time to time causes their music to become a jumbled, ambiguous specter. You recall the best lyrics or the most catchy riff, but you pass by the forgotten gems or the rare throwaway track that served as a transition to a great song. Listening to the full albums are simply the best way to appreciate what the Beatles were all about.
In retrospect, maybe they weren’t. The original CD masters really were pretty poor and mono versions of many albums (arguably the way the Beatles were truly meant to be heard early in their career) were unavailable. This year’s stereo and mono reissues, with their top-notch remastering, were like a face-to-face reuniting with an old friend that we had only spoken to over the phone for the past decade. There was dimension, clarity and humanity again, and you’ve found a whole new respect and attraction to them.
This was a strange music year for me. After spending the past few years immersing myself almost entirely in ambient, drone, and various strains of dance music, I inadvertently returned to my “indie roots” (sorry, pretentious) and listened to a lot more of the straightforward albums that Pitchfork was slinging. I found stuff like the new Flaming Lips, A Sunny Day in Glasgow, Memory Tapes, and, of course, Animal Collective to be refreshing, and it kind of restored my faith in indie music. I gotta throw it out there that I didn’t check out nearly as much new music this year as I have in the past few, so I feel like my list could be stronger. The truth is, I spent a good chunk of the year listening exclusively to Unwound’s Leaves Turn Inside You. Oh, and there were a couple of months when all I listened to was Hold Steady’s Separation Sunday. And nowadays, I’m basically only playing Rage. I was told this is because I’m angsty. So anyway, here’s my top ten albums of 2009:
10. Deuce – EP + Planetary Assault Systems rmx
The techno fans out there are probably well aware of the splashes that both Shed and Marcel Dettmann made last year, with Shedding the Past and Berghain 02 respectively, but for those who aren’t in the know, these two are pretty much putting out the best techno there is right now. While this collaboration yielded very little output this year (a three-track EP and a Planetary Assault Systems remix), they made up for scant quantity with four mind-bending grooves of the highest order. These collective 23 minutes are the most punishing, relentless dance music I heard all year, with the obvious reference point being Jeff Mills’ fabled 1995 DJ set at the Liquid Room in Tokyo and methamphetamines.
9. Ben Frost – By The Throat
Imagine a dude who makes vicious, distorted swells (and the odd wolf growl) with his instruments. Then think about how awesome they might sound paired with Sigur Ros’ string section, Aniima. And then if he added Nico Muhly, a dude from Arcade Fire, and some Swedish metal band. Might as well reference Twin Peaks while he’s at it, huh? Now look at that cover. You want some of this.
8. Brock Van Wey – White Clouds Drift On and On
Perfectly titled, this is a dubbed out, gorgeous collection of overlapping drones, which, much like the clouds overhead, are continually morphing, expanding, and contracting despite seeming stagnant. It’s important to throw it out there that this is on Echospace, which means you’re definitely not dealing with your run-of-the-mill drones here. Even better is that Steve Hitchell (Intrusion) was so enamored with the music, he busted out a track-for-track remix album to be included with the release. If Echospace is one of your go-to labels, make this the next album you check out.
7. Bear in Heaven – Beast Rest Forth Mouth
This one really took me be surprise. Despite my stubborn insistence that indie rock needs to be stuffed with experimental flourishes for me to enjoy it, it turns out that, no, solid songwriting, tons of hooks, spot-on production, and a kick ass drummer is all it really takes to make me happy. Plus, the whole thing smacks of the 80s (in terms of melodies, not production), and the singer kind of sounds like Peter Cetera to me. So there’s that.
6. Neon Indian – Psychic Chasms
OK, first off…There’s a track on here called “Should’ve Taken Acid With You,” so you get a pretty good idea of what you’re in for. This right here is some straight up ear candy. Like Daft Punk or Tispy before him, Neon Indian takes ridiculously cheesy sound sources and melds them into heady, ass-kicking tracks. There’s not a second that goes by without a sound bouncing all over your headspace, and he coats everything in delay, reverb, phasing, flanging, and anything else that’ll make it sound like a jet passing overhead. Oh, and it’s surprisingly effective for getting toddler-aged girls to shake their booties on a Saturday morning.
Hey y’all, I’m Josh. I worked at Pure Pop a couple of years back, right around the time Sue Norton was packing up for NYC. As was the case with Sue and Casey, the time I spent in that dingy basement broadened and refined my musical knowledge more than I ever would’ve expected. It seemed like I was constantly discovering some new, mind-blowing album through one of my co-workers or a Pure Pop patron, and I’ve got nothing but love for the place because of it.
These days I’m involved in a few different music projects, which are all tied to Aether Everywhere, the experimental label and online resource I help to run with Pure Pop lifer, Tanner McCuin, and the drumtastic leader of The Le Duo, JB Ledoux. Feel free to check out the website, which has been lovingly constructed by Tanner, and join the discussion forums for music updates and general shenanigans. www.aethereverywhere.com
I’ve been asked to write about a few ambient and drone albums I feel deserve some recognition. If you’re reading this, then you’re probably already familiar with the highlights of these genres, like Brian Eno’s ambient releases, Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works, Vol II, Biosphere’s Substrata, and Stars of the Lid’s The Tired Sounds… (and if you’re not, get on ‘em!), so I’m providing a chronological list of seven albums you may not be aware of, but are definitely worthy of your attention.
1) Klaus Schulze – Irrlicht
(Ohr; 1972)
Cosmic drones from Ash Ra Tempel and Tangerine Dream ex-member, Klaus Schulze. Using an organ, electronic effects, and a heavily-processed orchestra, Schulz created three colossal monsters that catapult you into the deepest recesses of space. Sharing many attributes with Tangerine Dream’s masterstroke, Zeit, any lover of early ‘70s German music has a gaping hole in his/her album collection without this one.
2) Tetsu Inoue – Ambiant Otaku
(Fax; 1994)
Relatively unknown, but highly touted by hardcore ambient fans, Inoue has been producing a steady stream of quality albums over the past couple of decades. One of his biggest fans, John Zorn, has released several of his servings on the awesome Tzadik label. Ambiant Otaku is most often cited as Inoue’s masterpiece, as well as one of the genre’s landmarks, and for good reason. Equally delicate and heady (which isn’t easy to pull off), you could easily spend weeks with this and his slightly darker offering, Organic Cloud, which was released a year later.
3) Pete Namlook – Air II
(Instinct Record; 1994)
Despite the fact that he’s released more than 100 albums, founded the venerable German ambient label, Fax, and collaborated with the likes of Klaus Schulze, Bill Laswell, Biosphere, Richie Hawtin, and Higher Intelligence Agency (to name a few), not many people seem to know much about Pete Namlook. I haven’t even begun to put a dent in his massive discography, but from what I’ve heard so far, Air II stands above the rest. Namlook deftly mixed shimmering synth pads, a barrage of exotic instruments, and plenty of interesting rhythms to create 11 pieces that work wonderfully as a unified whole, and take on almost a gothy feel in some spots. It remains one of those albums that always seems to find its way back to my ears before too long, and it’s usually one of the first to spring to mind when I’m asked to recommend an awesome album.
4) Thomas Koner – Nuuk:
(Big Cat Records; 1997)
Dark ambient really doesn’t get any better than this. Koner, who’s one half of Chain Reaction alum Porter Ricks, created a stunning album that perpetually evokes the barren, frozen landscapes of Greenland. Here’s a link to the Dusted review of Nuuk’s 2004 reissue, seeing as how it was penned by another Ghost of Pure Pop Past and all.
5) Hazard – Wind
(Ash International; 2001)
B.J. Nilsen, aka Hazard, hit a roadblock while trying to effectively capture the sounds of the wind, so he did one better by borrowing sound clips from field recording maestro Chris Watson. He then subjected these recordings to extensive digital processing and came out the other side with drones harrowing enough to recall Eno’s On Land. Highly textural and trippy as hell, this one’s not nearly as academic as it sounds on paper.
6) Christopher Bissonnette – Periphery
(Kranky; 2005)
For Periphery, sound artist Christopher Bissonnette weaved together snippets of piano and orchestral samples and stretched them into the unrecognizable, leaving only a ghostly blur where the source material once was. Bissonnette’s skillful patchwork summoned the sounds of barnacle-encrusted pianos and violins sighing from the recesses of an arctic sea, getting swept up by the currents, and gently floating back down to the ocean floor.
7) Lusine ICL – Language Barrier:
(Hymen; 2007)
I can’t stress enough that you should give this one at least five loud headphone spins before you make any decisions. All of the parts that initially sound elementary become deeply resonant and flat-out gorgeous with each subsequent play. Ambient or not, this is the perfect album to cue up when you’re taking a mellow drive on a sunny autumn day. Or to put it another way, if you’ve ever wondered what it’d be like to hear The Field’s Sublime sounds on a morphine drip, skip right to track 3 and press play.
