Witch house is a

microgenre A microgenre is a specialized or niche genre. The term has been used since at least the 1970s to describe highly specific subgenres of music, literature, film, and art. In music, examples include the myriad sub-subgenres of heavy metal and electr ...

electronic music Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroac ...

characterized by dark

occult The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as magic and mysticism a ...

themes and visual aesthetics that emerged in the late 2000s and early 2010s. The style is heavily influenced by

chopped and screwed Chopped and screwed (also called screwed and chopped or slowed and throwed) is a music genre and technique of remixing music that involves slowing down the tempo and deejaying. It developed in the Houston hip hop scene in the early 1990s by D ...

hip hop, as well as

industrial music Industrial music is a genre of music that draws on harsh, mechanical, transgressive or provocative sounds and themes. AllMusic defines industrial music as the "most abrasive and aggressive fusion of rock and electronic music" that was "initiall ...

ethereal wave Ethereal wave,Glasnost Wave magazine, issue # 42, p. 32/34, genre classification of the bands Trance to the Sun (''"Ghost Forest"''), This Ascension (''"Light and Shade"''), Soul Whirling Somewhere (''"Eating the Sea"''), Cocteau Tw ...

and

dream pop Dream pop (also typeset as dreampop) is a subgenre of alternative rock and neo-psychedelia that emphasizes atmosphere and sonic texture as much as pop melody. Common characteristics include breathy vocals, dense productions, and effects such as ...

. Witch house incorporates

synth A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

s, drum machines, obscure samples, droning repetition, and vocals that are heavily altered, ethereal, and/or indiscernible. The witch house visual aesthetic includes

witchcraft Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have us ...

shamanism Shamanism is a religious practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with what they believe to be a Spirit world (Spiritualism), spirit world through Altered state of consciousness, altered states of consciousness, such as tranc ...

, terror and horror-inspired artworks, collages and photographs as well as significant use of

hidden messages A hidden message is information that is not immediately noticeable, and that must be discovered or uncovered and interpreted before it can be known. Hidden messages include backwards audio messages, hidden visual messages and symbolic or cryptic ...

and typographic elements such as

Unicode Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology Technical standard, standard for the consistent character encoding, encoding, representation, and handling of Character (computing), text expre ...

symbols. Artworks by witch house visual artists have incorporated imagery from horror films such as ''

The Blair Witch Project ''The Blair Witch Project'' is a 1999 American supernatural horror film written, directed and edited by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez (director), Eduardo Sánchez. It is a fictional story of three student filmmakers—Heather Donahue, Mic ...

'', the television series ''

Twin Peaks ''Twin Peaks'' is an American Mystery fiction, mystery serial drama television series created by Mark Frost and David Lynch. It premiered on American Broadcasting Company, ABC on April 8, 1990, and originally ran for two seasons until its cance ...

'', horror-inspired

dark web The dark web is the World Wide Web content that exists on ''darknets'': overlay networks that use the Internet but require specific software, configurations, or authorization to access. Through the dark web, private computer networks can communi ...

videos and mainstream

pop culture Pop or POP may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Music * Pop music, a musical genre Artists * POP, a Japanese idol group now known as Gang Parade * Pop!, a UK pop group * Pop! featuring Angie Hart, an Australian band Albums * Pop (Gas al ...

celebrities of the 2000s. Common typographic elements in titles, such as by Salem and White Ring, include

triangle A triangle is a polygon with three Edge (geometry), edges and three Vertex (geometry), vertices. It is one of the basic shapes in geometry. A triangle with vertices ''A'', ''B'', and ''C'' is denoted \triangle ABC. In Euclidean geometry, an ...

cross A cross is a geometrical figure consisting of two intersecting lines or bars, usually perpendicular to each other. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally. A cross of oblique lines, in the shape of the Latin letter X, is termed a sa ...

es and Unicode symbols, which are seen by some as a method of keeping the scene

underground Underground most commonly refers to: * Subterranea (geography), the regions beneath the surface of the Earth Underground may also refer to: Places * The Underground (Boston), a music club in the Allston neighborhood of Boston * The Underground ...

and harder to search for on the Internet, as well as references to the television series ''Twin Peaks'' and ''

Charmed ''Charmed'' is an American fantasy drama television series created by Constance M. Burge and produced by Aaron Spelling and his production company Spelling Television, with Brad Kern serving as showrunner. The series was originally broadcast ...

''.

Influences and style

Despite the name of the genre, witch house does not bear many similarities to the dance music genre known as

house music House is a music genre characterized by a repetitive Four on the floor (music), four-on-the-floor beat and a typical tempo of 120 beats per minute. It was created by Disc jockey, DJs and music producers from Chicago metropolitan area, Chicago' ...

, which features a strong up-tempo beat. Instead, witch house adapted techniques rooted in

hip-hop, specifically drastically slowed tempos with skipping,

stop-time In tap dancing, jazz, and blues, stop-time is an accompaniment pattern interrupting, or stopping, the normal time and featuring regular accented attacks on the first beat of each or every other measure, alternating with silence or instrumen ...

d beats—from artists such as

DJ Screw Robert Earl Davis Jr. (July 20, 1971 – November 16, 2000), better known by his stage name DJ Screw, was an American hip hop DJ based in Houston, Texas, and best known as the creator of the now-famous chopped and screwed DJ technique. He ...

, coupled with elements from other genres such as

noise Noise is unwanted sound considered unpleasant, loud or disruptive to hearing. From a physics standpoint, there is no distinction between noise and desired sound, as both are vibrations through a medium, such as air or water. The difference arise ...

drone Drone most commonly refers to: * Drone (bee), a male bee, from an unfertilized egg * Unmanned aerial vehicle * Unmanned surface vehicle, watercraft * Unmanned underwater vehicle or underwater drone Drone, drones or The Drones may also refer to: ...

cloud rap Cloud rap is a subgenre of Southern rap and trap music that has several sonic characteristics of lo-fi in its hazy, dreamlike and relaxed sound. Many music experts credit rapper Lil B and producer Clams Casino as the early pioneers of this style. ...

and

shoegaze Shoegaze (originally called shoegazing and sometimes conflated with "dream pop") is a subgenre of indie and alternative rock characterized by its ethereal mixture of obscured vocals, guitar distortion and effects, feedback, and overwhelming volu ...

. Many artists in the genre have released slowed down and backmasked

remix A remix (or reorchestration) is a piece of media which has been altered or contorted from its original state by adding, removing, or changing pieces of the item. A song, piece of artwork, book, video, poem, or photograph can all be remixes. The o ...

es of pop and hip hop songs, or long mixes of different songs that have been slowed down significantly. Witch house is also influenced by 1980s ethereal wave bands such as

Cocteau Twins Cocteau Twins was a Scottish rock band active from 1979 to 1997. They were formed in Grangemouth by Robin Guthrie (guitars, drum machine) and Will Heggie (bass), adding Elizabeth Fraser (vocals) in 1981 and replacing Heggie with multi-instrum ...

, as well as being heavily influenced by certain

industrial Industrial may refer to: Industry * Industrial archaeology, the study of the history of the industry * Industrial engineering, engineering dealing with the optimization of complex industrial processes or systems * Industrial city, a city dominate ...

and

experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when ...

bands, such as Psychic TV and Coil. The use of hip-hop drum machines,

atmospherics, creepy samples, dark

synthpop Synth-pop (short for synthesizer pop; also called techno-pop; ) is a subgenre of new wave music that first became prominent in the late 1970s and features the synthesizer as the dominant musical instrument. It was prefigured in the 1960s a ...

-influenced lead melodies, dense

reverb Reverberation (also known as reverb), in acoustics, is a persistence of sound, after a sound is produced. Reverberation is created when a sound or signal is reflected causing numerous reflections to build up and then decay as the sound is abso ...

, and heavily altered, distorted, and pitched down vocals are the primary attributes that characterize the genre's sound. The genre rose to prominence in the early 2010s with renewed interest in individually produced electronic music and Internet subcultures, rising with the increasing tide of genres such as

seapunk Seapunk is a subculture that originated on Tumblr in 2011. It is associated with an aquatic-themed style of fashion, 3D net art, iconography, and allusions to popular culture of the 1990s. The advent of seapunk also spawned its own electronic mu ...

and

vaporwave Vaporwave is a microgenre of electronic music, visual art style, and Internet meme that emerged in the early 2010s. It is defined partly by its slowed-down, chopped and screwed samples of smooth jazz, elevator music, elevator, contemporary ...

Origins and etymology

The term ''witch house'' was coined in 2009 by Travis Egedy, professionally known as

Pictureplane Travis Egedy (born May 1, 1985), better known by his stage name Pictureplane, is an American electronic musician, visual artist and fashion designer based in Brooklyn, New York. He first appeared in the music scene of Denver, Colorado, making a ...

. The term was originally conceived as a joke, as Egedy explained: "Myself and my friend Shams... were joking about the sort of house music we make, alling itwitch house because it’s, like, occult-based house music. ...I did this best-of-the-year thing with Pitchfork about witch house.... I was saying that we were witch house bands, and 2010 was going to be the year of witch house.... It took off from there. ...But, at the time, when I said witch house, it didn’t even really exist..." Shortly after being mentioned to ''

Pitchfork A pitchfork (also a hay fork) is an agricultural tool with a long handle and two to five tines used to lift and pitch or throw loose material, such as hay, straw, manure, or leaves. The term is also applied colloquially, but inaccurately, to ...

'', blogs and other mainstream music press began to use the term. ''

Flavorwire ''Flavorwire'' is a New York City-based online culture magazine. The site includes original feature articles, interviews, reviews, as well as content recycled from other sources. ''Flavorwire'' describes themselves as "a network of culturally con ...

'' said that despite Egedy's insistence, "the genre does exist now, for better or worse". Some music journalists, along with some members of musical acts identified as being in the genre's current movement, consider witch house to be a false label for a microgenre, constructed by certain publications in the music press (including ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'', ''Pitchfork'' and various music blogs). The genre was also briefly connected to the term ''rape gaze'', the serious use of which was publicly denounced by its coiners, who never expected it to be used as an actual genre term, but viewed it as simply a joke intended to mock the music press' propensity towards the creation of microgenres.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Witch House (Music Genre) Electronic music genres Fusion music genres Industrial music Experimental music genres Dark music genres Microgenres 2000s neologisms 2010s in music Indie music 2000s in music