Haven’t heard of Witch House yet? Maybe you would
never do, as the short-lived micro genre peaked already in 2011 with bands like
Salem, Mater Suspiria Vision, White Ring and †‡† and
then started to fade back into obscurity.
You may know the two-sisters-act CocoRosie and Canadian
punk girl Grimes while not considered by purists as part of the genre using a
lot of elements of Witch House, gained major popularity in the leftfield and
independent scene during the last years and performed widely acclaimed live
gigs in Europe.
Classic Witch House builds up on a number of
musical influences like Minimal Synth, Dark Wave, Ambient, Industrial and
Shoegaze/Etheral Pop, sometimes combined with modern rhythms from House and Hip-Hop.
The main characteristics are spooky women – modern witches singing mysterious
poetry, demonstrating obsession with religious and spiritual symbols, resulting
in a subtile sex appeal combing elements of Gothic Lolita, Hollywood divas and
ancient creature Medusa. It’s like David Lynch, Takeshi Miike and Dario Argento team up for a horror catwalk movie.
However, while the clear profile as a micro
trend is lost, lately one of the figureheads of the genre released a
compilation LP which is moving Witch House back into the spotlight.
It’s Modern Witch, a US trio from Denver,
founded six years ago, consisting of graphic artist Mario Zoots, writer and
singer Kristy Foom and electronic musician Kamran Kahn.
The LP “Hollywood”, released on Dutch
electronic label (T)reue um (T)reue consists of nine tracks from their various self-released
tapes and CDrs and gives an excellent overview about the band’s oevre. As it is
limited to 260 copies you have to hurry for a copy. Here’s my favourite track,
Hollywood Babylon.
Isn’t that really what you expect modern
witches to be?
A second compilation is planned for this year.
Modern Witch rarely play any live gigs, so
watch out. I would love to see them. You can invite me for a beer and a bed, if
they are playing in your hometown.
Other recommended tracks if you want to want to
explore the genre further.
or check out all the stuff on
Have fun!
