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Witchhouse as a trend...

Posted: November 8th, 2011, 5:19 pm
by Melaniemac
Hi all,

My name is Melanie Macleod, I am a journalism student studying at the London College of Fashion, currently writing an article on Witch-House, and how big it is getting now...

I was just wondering, if you could all tell me what it is that draws you to Witch-House? The style of music? The fashions? The atmosphere at the nights? What is your favourite aspect of Witch-house? What do you feel sums it up?

Thank you so much in advance for your help, really appreciated

MM

Re: Witchhouse as a trend...

Posted: November 8th, 2011, 7:58 pm
by I††
Wow, it is getting big?
I have heard it is dead. :D

My favorite thing about it was the dark experimental vibe it had in the beginning.
I am a sucker for old horror movie samples and goth fashion. Placing these things in new modern, innovative contexts and juxtapositions helped to get a lot of people on board, including me. Unfortunately, over saturation is turning out a lot of copycats and uninspired tracks that are just pop/R&B/Hiphop songs slowed down. I still love the genre and there are many of us who will keep making dark/rhythmic/experimental sounds what ever name people want to put on it. It just currently happens to be called witch house/grave wave/ghost drone/haunted house/chill wave/triangle-core/drag etc.

Re: Witchhouse as a trend...

Posted: November 8th, 2011, 8:03 pm
by donaldf▽ck
it's too late dude

Re: Witchhouse as a trend...

Posted: November 8th, 2011, 8:22 pm
by ∆AIMON
agree completely with I††. my initial response to your post though is that some of us here might find it insulting to imply that witch house is a trend. my stance is that it's just a new culmination of factors that have been inspiring and motivating artists for years. the cultural climate is perhaps more susceptible to the psychedelic and occult paradigm it represents but that doesn't make it a fashion of it's own.
when Hunter S. Thompson spoke of the "high-water mark - that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back" he was defining a similar movement built on dizzying momentum defying the need to fight for or against, just a sense that energy would prevail. I feel similarly that witch-house began as a product of our current momentum culturally and within a give-take prevailing energy of a cyclic interest in occult/spiritual/revolution. so for me it synchronistically fit what I was already beginning to do musically. the movement itself was just a profound realisation that others were doing the same.
again in agreement with I††, I especially find interest in the experimentation and breaking of preconceived ideas regarding the genres witch-house draws inspiration from; bringing an occult, horror, dark, and broken aesthetic to an almost mainstream listenability or dwelling deep in jarring and cathartic noise and drone.

Re: Witchhouse as a trend...

Posted: November 8th, 2011, 9:20 pm
by powwowW
Very well put Brant. :_)

Re: Witchhouse as a trend...

Posted: November 8th, 2011, 9:26 pm
by dirtypharms
noise music for the facebook age

Re: Witchhouse as a trend...

Posted: November 8th, 2011, 9:44 pm
by Pe† Ceme†ery
Agreed with both I†† and ∆AIMON. I'd like to add that Witch Haus really isn't about fashion. Visual art, definitely, but the clothing part of it seems practically negligible. As for the "nights"... We have had two so far in the UK that weren't just gigs, and from two nights we can't glean very much. Either way those two were hardly some higher form of meeting of minds.

Witch House is difficult to sum up as anything other than the first internet-based non-genre. The only abiding characteristics are experimental, dark, and based upon contemporary memetic structures (before everyone goes "OOOH MEMES! U MEEN LIEK LOLZCATZ?! please go and look up what memes actually ARE). I've linked a really great article below that a lot of producers find little to disagree with, written by a friend and a signing of mine, Bram Gieben (aka. Texture, also of Black Lantern Music): http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/ ... tch_house/

I'll be honest and say that thing that made it attractive to me is that it seemed to distil the bass-heavy sounds I loved about traditional goth (Bauhaus, Sisters of Mercy) whilst including modern hip-hop influences and treating the vocals as another sound source to be manipulated. That initial attraction died after a couple of weeks and I became far more interested in just the sheer experimentation involved.

I hope this helps with your project: when you're done, could you possibly post a copy for us to see? Cheers.

Re: Witchhouse as a trend...

Posted: November 8th, 2011, 10:30 pm
by sk▼ll_f♥kk▲
I love shoegaze and am attracted to genres with stupid fucking names.

Re: Witchhouse as a trend...

Posted: November 9th, 2011, 2:51 am
by chemicalxkid
For witch house, I like how it began with an overall theme with the occult, †††, symbols, odd character symbols, old horror films, goth and the like. It kind of fascinated me, as well as the art. The music is very odd, dark, full of bass, and very "pliable." I say pliable because it's sample-based, you can do MANY things with just one sample of someone speaking or of a movie clip. Because of the creative freedom involved with it, this allows for a large range of experimental music to derive from just ONE clip. To demonstrate, I would recommend listening to ▲NDRΛS's "Ten of Swords" Single, which features remixes from many other witch house artists. http://marquisandras.bandcamp.com/album ... rds-single. Therefore, many artists can exemplify their own styles through witch house, and they aren't confined to following a strict pattern of conformity.
However, that being said, with such creative freedom, inevitably there will be those "artists" that just decide to slow down a common pop song and call it witch house, or even a work of musical creativity at all. I quote and agree with I††, "Unfortunately, over saturation is turning out a lot of copycats and uninspired tracks that are just pop/R&B/Hiphop songs slowed down." I won't be the first to say that a lot of "witch house" artists out there are just killing the genre. Example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qOyaBAoA2M, what is that EVEN. "Never Gonna Give You Up ▲†‡Witch House Remix‡†▲"? I can't even. No drums, just a slowed down pop song. No creativity. No, "Never Gonna Give You Up (▲†‡Witch House Remix‡†▲)" doesn't even deserve to be called witch house, because it's not. It's shit. Complete and total shit.
In order to find GOOD witch house, you have to kind of delve into the genre and pick and choose what is "musically good," what has good rhythm, what has a dark tone, what is creative, etc, although that's definitely subjective! These are some witch house artists I used to introduce myself to the genre: oOoOO, Salem, White Ring, Holy Other, †‡†.
Good luck on your paper! I would love to read the final draft as well.

Re: Witchhouse as a trend...

Posted: November 9th, 2011, 7:07 am
by DREAMBLOOD
It was a form of electronic music that took the dark, mysterious world of the occult and presented itself in a similar way. I was instantly drawn to it because I hadn't found a kind of music that touched on this kind of cold, foggy atmosphere and feel, not even with black metal. The whole genre even feels like a witch coven.

Re: Witchhouse as a trend...

Posted: November 9th, 2011, 8:25 pm
by G.R. Zømbi€
I too agree with I†† and ∆AIMON. I found a community that shares the same passion for the occult as well as dark, experimental music. It was and still is an awesome feeling. I die a little inside every time I see that it's called a "trend" , I believe there is much more to it than people perceive. I am happy to have found these unique individuals, and have so much respect for everyone.

Re: Witchhouse as a trend...

Posted: November 9th, 2011, 10:25 pm
by symbols n shit
Just a side, note, I think it's kinda annoying when people say "Oh, this thing I happen to be into isn't A TREND! It's SO MUCH MORE!" Nonsense. Everything ever is a trend or a phase when you zoom out enough chronologically.

Re: Witchhouse as a trend...

Posted: November 9th, 2011, 11:06 pm
by Pe† Ceme†ery
^ Memetics, summed up.

Re: Witchhouse as a trend...

Posted: November 10th, 2011, 8:57 am
by audrey hørne
witch house is about doing what you love.

Re: Witchhouse as a trend...

Posted: November 10th, 2011, 12:46 pm
by KTHVLHV
Initially I was just confused and slightly curious about these strange guys that kept being thrown up on /mu/, and the general blogosphere. I like a bit of silliness, and neon cats and non-alphabetic bandnames piqued my interest. Kind of slipped off my radar for a while after that, which iirc was around 2009.

Recently started looking at the 'scene' again and I just like what I'm hearing. The aesthetic along with it is only a bonus really, but it's fun. I think talking of it as an actual scene in the UK is a bit of a pisstake tho, it's an internet thing. It just leaks out occasionally, but the number of people who're into it over here is tiny like. You can't really comment on the nights if there aren't any (outside of london).