(2010 Sep 15) Pure Pop Online publishes '\\WITCH H▲USE – P▲RT TW▲//'

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(2010 Sep 15) Pure Pop Online publishes '\\WITCH H▲USE – P▲RT TW▲//'

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https://web.archive.org/web/20110912022 ... use-part2/

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\\WITCH H▲USE – P▲RT TW▲//
September 15th, 2010

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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

1) Acephale Records

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.)

Posted by Jay Filed

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