witch house
Needless to say, the name has few adherents within the scene, if it is indeed even a scene in any formal way. “There’s no center for it, it’s definitely Internet-based,” said Bryan Kurkimilis of White Ring. It’s also a small community, but growing. A few blogs specialize in witch house, and recent releases by Tri Angle have appeared in the top 10 of the iTunes electronic-music chart. While they don’t have geography in common, witch house acts share several signifiers. The music is hollow and reverb-heavy yet spare, a triumph of texture more than traditional song structure. And of course, it’s slow, taking the screw mood and updating it. Like its predecessors, it can require almost monastic focus, songs creeping along at such a sluggish pace that the ear and brain are preparing for the next shift before the song is ready to deliver it.