Witch house (music genre)

Witch house (sometimes referred to as drag or Haunted House) is a music genre. The term witch house started out as a joke that was originally used to describe occult-based house music by Travis Egedy (commonly known by the stage name Pictureplane) and his friends in 2009.^[1][2][3] As the internet meme grew in popularity, shortly after being pitched to Pitchfork Media,^[4] blogs and other mainstream music press began to actively continue the use of the term for marketing purposes, and thus now the label is loosely used to describe a subgenre of industrial music.

It generally features a fusion of techniques rooted in Swishahouse hip hop – sluggish tempo with skipping, stop-timed beats^[5] – coupled with elements from genres such as noise, drone, and shoegaze.^[6] Witch house is also influenced by hazy 1980s goth bands, including Cocteau Twins, The Cure, Christian Death and Dead Can Dance,^[7] as well as being heavily influenced by certain early industrial bands.^[8][9] Many artists in the genre have released slowed-down remixes of pop and rap songs,^[10] or long mixes of different songs that have been slowed down significantly. Common typographic elements in artist and track names include triangles, crosses, and other geometric shapes,^[11][12] which is seen by some as being part of a larger unified aesthetic within the scene as well as a method of keeping it underground and harder to search for on the internet.^[13][14]

As of August 2, 2011, Pitchfork Media are continuing the use of the term, but are now using witch house to market and describe †††, a solo project of Chino Moreno, of the American alternative metal band Deftones,^[15] whose EP Crosses features a collection of minimal and soothing, electronic-based, ambient rock tracks,^[16] further contributing to the controversy over the vagueness of the term.

Criticism

The term witch house has been criticized as not representing a cohesive genre or scene and being a result of a compulsion to label everything, ultimately simply used as a label for marketing purposes. The genre was at one point connected to the name rape gaze, the use of which has since been publicly denounced by its coiners, who "never expected it to be used for an actual genre."^[17] Other critics view it as simply a gimmick.^[18] Witch house has also been said to be a micro-genre constructed by certain publications in the music press (among them The Guardian, Pitchfork and various music blogs). These claims, among others, have been made by some members of musical acts identified in the supposed genre's current movement, as well as by musical analysts.^{[9][19][20][21][22][23]}

Travis Egedy, commonly known by the stage name Pictureplane, describes witch house as the following:

References