Stop Making Seance: witch house mix

Over at Not For Resale (http://nfrblog.blogspot.com/), Meatbreak's put together a witch house mix. In his own words:


"So this Witch House stuff is about to whip into a full eldritch storm when the TriAngle twin release and SALEM albums drop in September. Best not be sitting on the Hate side of the fence when that hits. This has taken me ages to do and I’ve surprised myself by missing out some of my favourite tracks from massive scene shiners like White Ring, TEARIST, Passions, SLEEP∞OVER and others, but I wanted it to be a tight, focused & fully effective freak of a mix instead of a full primer style overview, which I think it is now; but trust me, it hurt to do it. Someone already told me I should do another one with just the hits. Maybe.

So much to say about this; such little inclination to decry the hate; if you keep up with the blog you’ll have read my opinions and know my position. This is a sound I’ve been waiting for for years – it’s been in my head forever and if you’ve heard about Witch House / Haunted House / Spook / Ghost Drone / Drag or whatever it’s getting called on the blogs you read you’ll have the gist of the genre – multi-roomed subterranean crypto-occultism with an indecipherable debased aesthetic.

Listen to this mix and tell me there’s not meat to chew off them bones"






The tracklist:


De/Void – The Spooning Couple (Self-Release)
†‡† - gOth bb (Self-Release)
SALEM – King Night (King Night, IAMSOUND)
Dream Boat – Your Beaches (Fevers Ep, AMDisc)
/// ▲▲▲\\\ - Tetanus Wine (_v_o_i_d_, Disaro)
Balam Acab – Heavy Living Things (Self-Release)
Dir†yprid3 - sOmethiNgiNtheway (cobain) (CDr, Disaro)
Modern Witch – Cinema (Beko Box 1, Beko)
oOoOO – Seaww (Emotion 7“, Disaro)
▲ - Pyr▲mid (Self-Release)
Mater Suspiria Vision - Seduction of the Armageddon Witches (Self-Release)
xix – Deep Void (Self-Release)
GuMMy†Be▲R! - We Live Here (3-Track Promo, Self-Release)
GR†LLGR†LL - ...sLOwLickiN... (wayne) (CDr, Disaro)

You bet I copied and pasted that. The mix is available to download from here: http://nfrblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/download-stop-making-seance-nfr-mix-05.html.

White Ring - 'Suffocation' (Los Campesinos! remix)

Speaking of witch house, which we were, one of its flagship artists, White Ring have had their tune 'Suffocation' remixed by the unlikeliest of bands: Welsh upstarts Los Campesinos!. They do some magical things to the source material though, putting a typically wistful, expansive spin on the dark, claustrophobic vibes of the original.

Via Pitchfork:

http://downloads.pitchforkmedia.com/White%20Ring%20-%20Suffocation%20(Los%20Campesinos!%20Remix).mp3

http://downloads.pitchforkmedia.com/White%20Ring%20-%20Suffocation.mp3

Witch House

There's been a plethora of strange band names of late, with symbols replacing letters and so on. It's no coincidence, however: most of these artists are singing from a similar hymn sheet aesthetically. Names used to describe this burgeoning movement/genre/scene include 'haunted house' 'drag' and 'ghost drone', but 'witch house' seems to be the one that's sticking. The characteristics of the genre include 'chopped and screwed' hip-hop influences (an earlier form of hip hop that slowed down street-rap's flow to create a drugged-out, eerie sound); slowed down, ghostly vocal samples; a fascination with the occult and ritualism/symbolism (reflected in the use of upper/lower case punctuation, triangular symbols etc.), and the twisting inside-out of conventional pop songs.

From Joe Colly's Pitchfork article 'Ghosts in the Machine':

"Each artist has his own take: Balam Acab sounds almost like rudimentary dubstep, oOoOO's songs are ethereal and sample heavy, and White Ring are on the darker edge of synth-pop. But they share some common traits. "Drag" tracks are always beat-driven but molasses-paced-- the bass is prominent, but drowsy and languid. Vocals are there, but no one's singing upfront. (Typically, vocals are manipulated in some way and buried in the mix.) It's not necessarily tech-y music-- there's a human quality to these songs but it's ghostly and distorted, as if the tracks themselves are haunted."

An excellent introductory mix can be found at http://dontmakelists.tumblr.com/post/807753756/mixtapetryangel.

These links are also essential:

http://pitchfork.com/features/articles/7806-ghosts-in-the-machine/

www.myspace.com/ffdisaro (DISARO Records)

http://witchtrial.tumblr.com/

http://www.myspace.com/triangledreams