Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

General discussion, news, info, new releases etc.
teacake
Posts: 187
Joined: July 24th, 2011, 4:08 am
Location: Seattle, WA.

Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

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Who told you about Witch House? What drew you to it? How did you find this forum?

A friend of mine in Baltimore who swims in a lot of different circles sent me a zip with "Yes, I Smoke Crack" in it, more to point out the comical name of the release than anything else. "It's called Witch House... but it's just Dirty South beats put to analog synths..."

My parents were goth in the 80s and I grew up with Siouxsie, Bauhaus, ASF, NIN and all those bands, when I got to high school I started getting into Darkwave, Synthpop, EBM, and Aggrotech. Toward the end of highschool I had outgrown the goth lifestyle and I was introduced to traditional Dubstep by one of my teachers who had been a DnB DJ since the late 90s. Then the Brostep explosion of '08 happened while I was in college and I wallowed in a pool of depression for a few years over the fact that my favorite genre of music had been hijacked by lawnmowers and robot farts... long story short, I like dark, bass-driven electronica.

I found these forums through a random google search on Balam Acab.


so... How 'bout you?
Anton Maiof
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Re: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

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Its nice that there seem to be a broad range of ages on this forum. I am one of the older generation I guess.

Grew up on a diet of The Cure, Noise Rock, Aphex Twin, European Progressive Rock and pirate VHS tapes in the UK. Witch House was shown to me by a friend who excitedly sent me a track by oOoOO saying "hey there is this new genre called Witch House!" which to me sounded like a mutated version of what I and a few friends had been doing within the revival of Italo Disco / Synth / Horror Disco over the previous years. I knew Mater Suspiria Vision before all this as they were quite active in posting video's to Antoni Maiovvi's myspace page, but to my embarrassment I had not really paid attention to them because of this.

Forum was found via google search. I was lurking here for a while without an account. I'm not sure why I made one. Awesome times probably. ;)
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0hPeee
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Joined: September 19th, 2010, 8:51 am
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Re: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

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i thought i was an older one too, but it's hard to tell exactly how old you guys are.

i had always like darker styles of music, but was not exposed to much goth or industrial type stuff... NIN was and is one of my favourite bands, but they were an anomaly in my collection at the time. my first musical passion was hiphop. i discovered wu-tang clan in 1997 and in the following years, dug right through the whole genre. when i got to anticon, it was around the same time the def jux label started, and i spent of lot of years on that sort of stuff. eventually i dug right through to the other side and came out listening to southern rap and screwed type stuff, but at the same time met a girl who introduced me to a lot of hardcore/emo/metalcore/screamo/metal stuff i liked. then dubstep happened, then all this glitchy-wonky-stuff, and i got into that too, but at the same time, i discovered sunn 0))) and drone music. that's about when i started making music (i previously only rapped on others beats), about 2007 i think... i was an avid reader of the fader's blog because they always had new southern gangsta shit, and by chance happened to click on a salem link... and it blew my mind. i felt like they were sort of trying to capture the same combination of things i was trying to (but heaps better, of course) - the southern rap/dubstep mixed with drone/black metal aesthetics ... i was attraced to explore this thing called "witch house" further, because the term reminds me of hp lovecraft... once i read the pitchfork article about witch house i was hooked, from looking into folks like horse macgyver, balam acab, white ring etc.

found this site, as i recall, by typing "witchhouse.com" into my browser to see if there was such a thing. haha.
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j∆ckr∆bbi†
Posts: 76
Joined: January 31st, 2011, 2:08 am

Re: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

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I've lurked blogs since I learned you could find new music through a lot of them, so eventually someone on a blog I was following posted up that GR†LLGR†LL CD-R and I've been intrigued since then and like OhPee, I also looked for a witchhouse.com to see if there was such a thing. In any event, I went from an early phase of liking indie rock in middle school, west-coast hip-hop, pink floyd and folk music in high school, and then random electronic music as I was getting out of high school and getting into college. Now I like most things, or at least try and give them a fair listen. I mainly enjoy beat-oriented stuff but I can dig drone stuff too, and was recently introduced to some rhythmic industrial powernoise and that was definitely an interesting experience. The genres that have my attention right now are obviously witch-house/screwgaze/drag/whatever else people are calling it now, electronic music in general (besides house and trance), and hip-hop.
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Nova Sol
Posts: 125
Joined: June 26th, 2011, 5:26 am

Re: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

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i listen to a lot ov fairly disparate genres, but i found with house through the japanese visual kei/darkwave scene--i fell in love with noir du'soleil's album (australian, but on a japanese darkwave label), so when koe soleil started posting witch house stuff, i figured i'd give it a shot.
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zin
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Re: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

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I'm not 100% sure, but I think the first song I've heard was Seaww from oOoOO followed by Salem's "Yes I Smoke Crack", right after that I googled for more and found Disaro's myspace. From myspace to myspace, I found the whole network of like-minded producers and artists, and was totally absorbed by the "movement". It was around Feb/March 2010. At that time Salem's vinyls and Disaro CDRs were already sold out, but I managed to buy literally the last ever copy of oOoOO's CDR released by Disaro (before it went out of print). With the same order I grabbed Mater Suspiria Vision's Second Coming CDr, Modern Witch' Disaro CDr and Passions self-titled CDr.

At that time, the main problem for me was to find more info and news about upcoming releases of those artists. There was a WITCH HOUSE last.fm group, but it wasn't really that good for exchanging opinions. So I decided to start this website, and on May 14th, 2010 witch-house.com made its online debut.
Pe† Ceme†ery
Posts: 181
Joined: May 23rd, 2011, 6:55 pm

Re: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

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I found it through the comic book writer Warren Ellis posting it on his site. I passed over Mater Suspiria Vision and went straight for Salem. "King Night" was the track... I discovered "Sick" immediately after (sometime in December 2010). I purchased the vinyl at my local record store (in Feb 2011) and went on a mad hunt for more, and found Story of Isaac's remixes, the Mishka Grave Wave comp, through which I found Stalker...

Through that I found EVERYTHING. I joined a facebook group called "Witchbook" (March/April 2011)... I left after making some friends and becoming a bit of an expert. I founded a select group supposed to aid novice producers in all forms of technical know-how and to get feedback from experiments. It was called the Council of Trent (May 2011). It still is. It's small. And it's where I founded Aural Sects (June/July 2011), whom a lot of you seem to be quite fond of now.

That is all.
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Nova Sol
Posts: 125
Joined: June 26th, 2011, 5:26 am

Re: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

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0hPeee wrote:i was attraced to explore this thing called "witch house" further, because the term reminds me of hp lovecraft
me too! there should be a lovecraft-themed compilation done at some point, called (ov course) the dreams in the witch houyse.
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zin
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Re: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

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^ good idea for W-H.com compilation number 2 ;)
cutups
Posts: 79
Joined: March 8th, 2011, 3:23 am

Re: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

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General music junkie like alot of people on here i'm sure, and been into most forms of darker music at some point (goth, noise, metal, drone, hardcore techno, etc.). My initial reading of witch house was that it was a joke genre, or one that wasn't going to really go anywhere - but was fine with that, i like a good "made up" genre. But i didn't really dig too far into it.

I checked out salems demo stuff a that was floating around a few years back and wasn't overly impressed, but ran across "asia" somwhere and was pretty blown away by how much better it was. After that point i started paying more attention, hopping on some other artists and found a decent amount of stuff i like.

I still kind of wondered where the "community" for this scene was, if it existed. Ran across this forum while googling one day. Dunno if there's really anything more active out there.
Paradise Lost
Posts: 19
Joined: December 28th, 2010, 9:06 pm

Re: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

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We have been discussing Modern Witch, Salem, oOoOO, Zola Jesus, Blank Dogs and white ring for a couple of years on another forum. I'm always just loved dark music. Joy Division, The Naked and The Dead, Alien Sex Fiend, Delierium, Kitchen and the Plastic Spoons, early Nine Inch Nails. Then I listened to a lot of darker and dirtier sounding dance music in the early 2000's. When witch house came along it was like a breath of fresh air because I used to only like older stuff. Even though there really is a lot of crap to sift through with witch house bands, it's still fun to give a respectable listen to everything and find those hidden gems that you truly love and play repeatedly. I love it.
teacake
Posts: 187
Joined: July 24th, 2011, 4:08 am
Location: Seattle, WA.

Re: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

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†▲βU∩∩ℽ▲† wrote:I found it through the comic book writer Warren Ellis posting it on his site. I passed over Mater Suspiria Vision and went straight for Salem. "King Night" was the track... I discovered "Sick" immediately after (sometime in December 2010). I purchased the vinyl at my local record store (in Feb 2011) and went on a mad hunt for more, and found Story of Isaac's remixes, the Mishka Grave Wave comp, through which I found Stalker...

Through that I found EVERYTHING. I joined a facebook group called "Witchbook" (March/April 2011)... I left after making some friends and becoming a bit of an expert. I founded a select group supposed to aid novice producers in all forms of technical know-how and to get feedback from experiments. It was called the Council of Trent (May 2011). It still is. It's small. And it's where I founded Aural Sects (June/July 2011), whom a lot of you seem to be quite fond of now.

That is all.
Haha, Witchbook exploded after that Dangerous Minds article was published.
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K▼L▲M†††B▲R▲NG
Posts: 30
Joined: August 14th, 2011, 8:20 am

Re: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

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My friends and I started an emo band back in 2006 (or 2007?) just because kids everywhere here in the Philippines have been labeling pop-punk hogwash emo; just to set the record straight as to what emo is suppose to sound like. We got bored doing that after an EP, a couple of demos and being part of 2 German comps (which is sort of a big thing in the hardcore scene here, I suppose). We then started playing psychedelic stuff in the vein of Brian Jonestown Massacre and Spaceman 3, we released a couple of demos and eps and are still playing today although in a hiatus. I also started experimenting with drone and freak folk, leaving my old electronica solo project behind and starting a couple of new ones (my drone-folk project is called Mushroom, the Truth, my sound collage project is called King Mango Mustard, and for a short while, a chiptunecore project called Krysstal Kasstles-a reaction against "nu rave"). I really got into Jewelled Antler Collective and stuff by Robedoor, Grouper, Pocahaunted, etc. So I guess witch house is a natural progression for me, musically. Good thing one of my bandmates introduced me to the genre, stating that since we both hate chillwave that witch house would be a far better listening experience. Days after that conversation and listening to a bunch of witch house comps and mixes, that was late last year, we made our 2 song demo as K▼L▲M†††B▲R▲NG.

Cool story bro.
You get sloppy drunk. I stay whisky neat. My clique should be cancelled -- FREAKS AND GEEKS.
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m◊◊nlit
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Joined: August 2nd, 2011, 5:27 am
Location: Brisbane

Re: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

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Someone posted 'Roses' by White Ring on another forum I visit, and I fell in love. I just kept googling and googling and found more stuff. I loved the sound so much that I started to make some witch house - it was very basic, clean, synthy, sample-driven. One track was sort of popular on SoundCloud but nothing fancy.

Then I eventually found my way here :)
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earlyspirit
Posts: 19
Joined: July 19th, 2011, 1:38 am

Re: Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?

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I'm 29, born and raised in New Orleans, and I was fortunate to have a much older sister who exposed me to a large variety of music at an early age. Because of her and her friends, I was listening to metal, punk, and a lot of 80's synth bands by the time I was in sixth grade. As I hit my early teen years, I started hanging with a bunch of hardcore/punk guys and for a period of time became very close minded musically. If it wasn't punk, hardcore, ska, reggae, or emo (good stuff like Braid and Sunny Day Real Estate) then I didn't like it. Later a friend got me into a band called Starflyer 59 that had a lot of shoegaze and indie rock influence. It caused me to start opening my horizons. While finding new music, I really spent a lot of time rediscovering old stuff, particularly darkwave/synth/80's stuff like Depeche Mode (who I already loved as a kid), The Smiths, Joy Division, New Order, The Cure, The Chameleons, Sisters of Mercy, Bauhaus, Legendary Pink Dots, and more. I also got into shoegaze, ambient, post-rock, and more. I had plenty of experience playing bass in various punk and hardcore bands but by 2004, I was sick of playing heavy music but that's all anybody in the area wanted to play. After Hurricane Katrina, I moved to Jackson, MS. Since I already loved electronic music, I decided to get Renoise (tracker software). I tried to make some electro style stuff but it was terrible. I started delving more into electronic music including drum & bass, trip-hop, and dubstep, particularly the more Burial uk garage style. I eventually got my hands on Reason 4 and now Reason 5. After writing some electro/dubstep stuff that was slightly dark, I was kind of disappointed with how it sounded. I found witch house music in mid 2010 and the more I thought about it, I felt that, even though I'm not a fan of the occultic side of witch house, that I found a style that incorporated elements of all of the sounds that I love. So about two months ago, I finally decided to give a stab at writing some witch house tracks. You guys can check out a track at http://www.soundcloud.com/beautillion. Also, Pale Noir is going to be releasing my debut ep in September.
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