The Witchy House Music of Face Culler's LOSTLANDS

This is one of those increasingly rare releases that sends me running to my blog to share.  A Facebook friend mentioned Occult Research, a tantalizing name for a label, and I proceeded immediately to the page to discover this gem of an album by Face Culler, their latest release.  This music is what I had imagined when I first heard the term 'witch house', before I figured out it wasn't house music at all.  Face Culler has absorbed late '80s, early '90s acid house and techno, jungle and breakbeat, but filters his homage with post-club internet sensibility.  The emphasis is more on listen-ability than  dance-ability. There's sufficient variation in rhythm, every track is distinct. It's highly visual music that will take you places if you let it. The subtle shadings in mood on these tracks keep the listener glued for the whole set. Check out "Two Distant Realities", the album's opener, the jungle acid of "Unlamenting", and the spacey and majestic "Juxtaposition"  for a good representative examples.
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Download: Time Tends to Wax and Wane by Pe† Ceme†ery

 

After hearing "Sad Summer Song" and "Untitled",  I got excited about the Pe† Ceme†ery album and avoided subsequent posts to Pet Cemetery's Soundcloud, cos I didn't want to hear it all before it came out. Now that it's finally here I am sooo glad I waited.

It's been a long time coming. Danny "Bunny" Kaye-Traynor spent almost two  years working on the tracks, and it shows in the richly detailed songs. Time Tends To Wax And Wane finds Traynor moving from the post-witch house deep underground to a more accessible mixture of dubstep and garage rhythms and witchy dream pop. The album is a delightful listen, loaded with fresh production techniques -- noise is incorporated into several songs -- and material that is weighty without being heavy; a richly textured soundscape for a very sad world, and sure to be part of the soundtrack for the coming winter.

Time Tends To Wax And Wane is a free download.
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Album Review: IDK I'M HAIGH BABYS FIRST MIXTAPE by Mona Lisa

Sometimes when my vision contracts I wonder if this tiny community of hipster internet geeks sharing each others music isn't really just a glorified circle jerk; a self-congratulatory circular feed-back loop, the participants of which imagine is somehow the center of the cultural universe. And then along comes something so legitimate, so underground and fresh, that it completely restores the conviction that this cultural nexus, the DIY-internet-underground-music-scene, really IS the top of the cultural pyramid. It's everything mainstream culture isn't; authentic, organic, innovative and dynamic.

Calling this a 'mixtape'  modestly eschews the pretensions of a 'debut album', but IDK I'M HAIGH is a debut as self-assured and confident as any I've heard.  Mona Lisa is the triple threat; a rapping singer songwriter with a gift for hooks and a flair for production. Think Kitty Pryde meets Panda Bear. Despite each track having its' own producer, they are all indelibly stamped with Mona Lisa's unique vocal tone and fully developed vocal arrangements that elevate them to the status of songs.  IDK is indisputably her album.

While Mona Lisa is a rapper, the songs do not sit comfortably in any established microgenre, and clearly transcending the narrow limits of  cloud rap.  IDK contains elements of trap, witch house and, most interestingly, dream pop, but fused into a coherent synthesis of just about everything going on in net music.

The album flows nicely. The "IDK I'm High" motif is woven into many of the tracks, and the dreamy vocal arrangements reinforce the thematic unity of the set. Three of the songs  deserve special mention. "Nice Boys" is a bona-fide pop hit. Producer Lautlos provides  a spare, shimmering bed over which the three rappers deliver a hypersexy, femmed-out paen to hetero-norm relationships. Guests rappers Babeolf Hitler and Brooklyn White (who also did the cover art) step up with some seriously dope verses. The Shisa-produced "CTRL + ALT"  is instantly addictive, its' cartoonish twee vocal hook sticking in your head like gum to your shoe. "System e r r o r",  with its' basic track by d0lphin sp,  is a  vocal tour-de-force, with beautifully blissful  vocal loops swirling,  as Mona Lisa sings an amazing and emotional song with almost a rock sensibility,  even while rapping some of the verses. The result had me standing on the roof fist-pumping again, which I haven't done in a while; a perfect fusion of dream pop and trap.

Mainstream "artists" like Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus enjoy access to the best songwriters, first class producers, and the best of everything,  but all the money in the world can't  buy the artistic legitimacy or substitute for the authenticity of real teenage street-swag. 

With other great tracks by fellow Florida producers Miles Farewell and ZDG, Houston's SHMX,  4llsouls of the Netherlands and TRAP DANiEL$. 

Download IDK I'M HAIGH BABYS FIRST MIXTAPE and follow Mona Lisa on Soundcloud and Facebook.

GOD IS ALONE IN HEAVEN // WiToWMaKeR

 

WiToWMaKeR is the solo project of multi-talented  Religious Girls front-man Chris Danko. Following on the heels of last year's ambient/experimental project Where Are and the amazing one-off collab with Party Trash TOO DEEP,  Danko turns in his most fully realized work yet, a   witchy-goth take on 2-step and UK garage.  God Is Alone In Heaven is witch house 2.0, realizing the potential latent in the genre; a nearly perfect blending of goth sensibility and actual dance music.

Strong thematic elements related to the concept enunciated in the title are woven into the record, unifying the tracks into a coherent album that demands to be listened to as-a-set.

"INTRO" sets the stage with its' spoken-word musings on energy being vampirically drawn from humans by the world, before dropping into the banger "NUMSKOLL", which  brings some serious dancefloor cred to the table. On "SUMBODI", the simple looping of a slowed vocal sample draws real emotion and meaning from the electronic track,  mourning lost love and contemplating the impossibility of recovery. "HEADBANGA" with its' acidic wobbles, is a convincing take on bro-step, as the title suggests. "FOREVER"is one of the albums highlights.  A track formed around a plaintive female vocal, it's seriously beautiful,  the lyrics reinforcing the emotional theme of the album.  "PARASITE" is a trip to ghostly techno-garage land before the album's undeniable climax;  the stunning "HEARTACHE (GOD IS ALONE IN HEAVEN)", with its' deeper-than-the-ocean bass and subtle sub-sonics.  The  "OUTRO" utilizes a bit of sampled movie dialog (Melancholia) that completes a dark portrait of our universe, where God has turned his back on the world, and we are completely alone.

Released through Aural Sects / Downsided Records / Popgang Records  God Is Alone In Heaven is available as on  a beautiful 12" vinyl release  which you can purchase HERE and for  download  on Beatport, iTunes and Spotify.

Follow WiToWMaKeR's Soundcloud.

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F ∆ U X E's Oh Fuck Another Beat Tape EP

I fux with Fauxe, one of my favorites.  He is  a seriously under-rated and consistently inventive beatmaker, whose work spans witch-house, ambient, shoegaze, and in this case, instrumental hip-hop. The Oh Fuck Another Beat Tape EP is finds the Singapore based producer paying homage to Donuts  on a 'beat tape' that develops lots interesting beats and rhythms but never stagnates. The sampling mines some excellent unheard material. Grab the free download, and check out all of his music. I recommend it.

Fuck with Fauxe on Soundcloud, Bandcamp and Facebook. 

LP: F A B L E S by THAT WAS THEN THIS IS NOW

The quality of this release is apparent on first listen--in fact, 30 seconds into the first song I knew I liked it. This is unreconstructed witch house with an absolutely classic sound. The project is is collaboration between veteran producer BLVCK CEILING and Moon Mirror, a female vocalist whose voice is uniquely suited to this music; it's a match made in heaven, or hell as it were. Dreams in the witch house.

EP: BLOODLETTER by MADDEN

MADDEN's  BLOODLETTER is a set  post-witch house darkwave trap music that has grown on  me since it was released in December. The four well differentiated tracks are wicked and witchy without being ugly.  The inventive beats and entrancing rhythms and textures demonstrate the overlap of dreamwave and witch house and will please fans of both genres.  Three excellent remixes by Party Trash, Burial Hex and M¥rrĦ Ka Ba round out the set, which is a free download from the ever-interesting and vital AURAL SECTS. Jump to their Bandcamp to download.
The beautiful cover art is by Vo5uru.

Single: "Everybody On Drugs (Once More With Feeling)" by MARIE DIOR + Remixes

Marie Dior's new one via Aural Sect is a glowing slab of dark-wave with remixes by anothercountyheard favorites AyGeeTee and Shisa. Click HERE for the free download.

Track: Fortune Howl "Pressure" NO EYES REMIX

This totally speaks for itself, so I will just say this is what I live for---the definition of what this blog is about. The nine minute epic is the perfect blending of (post-) witch-house and chillwave. NO EYES is ATL-based artist Seanny Georgie. Check out his Soundcloud for more of this madness.

Track: City & Color "Comin' Home" tinyforest Remix

image by Ricardo Stacey

Track: Pagan (New Edit) by JOVH

Download: Shisa and Choongum "Hearts"

Some excellent remixes and a strong original. Check out Supermarket Love's epic take on the track.

Track: CARLY RAE JEPSEN x PICTUREPLANE ( METH DAD MUSH UP )

Beautiful noise. CARLY RAE JEPSEN x PICTUREPLANE ( METH DAD MUSH UP ) by Meth Dad

Track: eaves "with/out u"

Next shit now. with/out u by eaves.

AURAL SECTS // BLAM LORDS QUEST

Interesting post-Situationist graphic. Listen to track 3 first. FREE DOWNLOAD ZIP 1
                                   ZIP 2

High Park // Remix of Drake's "Doing It Wrong"

                                                                Amazing remix.                                               

SEWER GREATS V.5 // Various Artists

The new album from internet label Sewer Greats is the fifth in a series of free compilations they have released on their Bandcamp. The label is centered loosely on the post-witch house scene, but each issue in the series has had a slightly different theme. They’re all worthwhile though I wasn’t crazy about the R&B flavored #4. This issue is a major work: the theme is rap. Each of the 26 tracks features rapping of some type, but it’s the swagged-out fringe of post-Kreayshawn / Gvcci Hvcci rap. The material ranges from the sublime to the ridiculous, and sometimes is both.

 Dolo Gang$ter -"Fuckt Up" is a good example: the refrain is “I love to get fucked up / everybody get fucked up / drank drank dat liquor / smoke smoke dat weed”, absurd when viewed as lyric content. Yet the street authenticity is undeniable, and the music behind this lyrical exercise in reducto ad absurdum is one helluva track, combining jazz samples and drag technique. This level of quality is the rule, not the exception on this carefully curated comp. Main Attrakionz’s “Chuch” is one of the best tracks here, a good example of their own brand of chill-hop. Kodak to Graph, kitty pryde, Bobbi Dahl, Michael Myerz -- all contribute interesting tracks. There's not a single track I skip when playing this.

Most feature provocative lyric content, and I can already hear the sanctimonious scorn of the ‘enlightened’ reacting. “If you’re a thoughtful person – how can you sanction this debased degenerate culture?” Attempts to make art serve some kind of social good usually results in the opposite, as in the case of nazi Germany, or in artless shit. Socially conscious hip-hop is virtually non-existent.

Or is it? The irony is that taking lyrics to this extreme of sex and drug obsession does something to highlight the inherent absurdity and throws into relief something that is almost irrational. Maybe following a thread through to its’ logical conclusion is a way of exorcising certain ills, of ‘working it out’. There is something undeniably valid about this music, more because of the debased content than in spite of it. This music is far more ‘real’ than what passes for hip-hop these days. It forces the audience to confront the dreams and nightmares latent in suburban ghetto bedrooms, and a society freed of the restraints formerly imposed by Christian morality. And that’s thought provoking. Sewage Tapes Facebook

G∞gle // G∞gle

JSHIH vs SHISA // Gold Fruit

a n o t h e r c o u n t y h e a r d  TRACK PREMIERE

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RAJA Remixes 2012 Mixtape // TRAP HOUSE

Astro Nautico just dropped this bomb of a remix tape by New York's RAJA. You should download it immediately here on Mediafire.  The tracks have been removed from Soundcloud, so don't wait. Here's a taste.