✝ DE△D VIRGIN ✝ - "Anxieties"

I imagine that most of you who read my blog regularly won't have much of an idea about what Witch House is. It's up for debate whether your're lucky, woefully misinformed or spend a non-excessive amount of time on the internet. It's odd that I haven't posted on it because I listen to large amounts of it, I've just never gotten round to posting about it or really mentioning it, though I do tweet about it.

Basically, Witch House was the buzz genre of 2011. A massive amount of the blogosphere started going crazy over it, and I'm now sure that a sizeable chunk of said sphere is devoted to it. The genre isn't like many genres which emerge from similar areas or social groups. It surfaced organically online, starting with a few MySpace/blog artists posting tracks of creepy, slowed down electro noise. The scene has developed a joking fascination with the occult, death, morbidity and peppering track and album names with symbols and creepy lettering - Ðł$$Ø₡łλŦłVE ŦƦλ₦₡E Ðł$ØƦÐEƦ$, ▲|||, †‡† being just a few haunting my iTunes. The "fascination" with darkness, death and witchcraft is (most of the time...) actually part of a massive in-joke, which is by and large what the genre has been. Last year was a good year for hoax genres as a matter of fact, what with Die Antwood jokingly pioneering "zef", the hardcore gangsta rap of South Africa...



Die Antwoord were pretty funny and the tunes actually quite enjoyable for a while. Then the joke began to wear thin. A bit like Jack Black.

And as 2010 ended and 2011 began, I wondered what would happen to Witch House. Would it turn sour as quickly as chillwave, its preceding over-hyped electro sub-genre, which is already a cringe worthy memory among most respectable inernet music sources? Would it evolve, mutate, warp? Would it dilute and hit the charts, superceding dubstep?

Truth is folks, I'm not entirely sure. A massive amount of Witch House is unsurprisingly pretty crap to listen to. Yeah sure, I don't doubt (always) that the producer gets the joke. But I've still got to sit and listen to their track. I'm not doing that for a track that offers me nothing whatsoever.

Well in the midst of a lot of interminable Witch House dross, I stumbled across the blog Fokkawolfe several months ago. Fokkawolfe has been my main source and gateway for all things Witch House because it almost invariably manages to find the really good stuff! It's in my list of favourite music sites/blogs on the right of the screen so check it out, it's run by a 28 year old British dude called Laurence.

A while ago they posted on a Witch House act called ✝ DE△D VIRGIN ✝. I liked their groove but didn't really investigate. Then, I checked on Fokkawolfe last week and discovered they'd made a new EP available for free, called Anxieties.

It's pretty immense folks. It's got so much going for it. It veers between crisp break beats, looming warped dubstep bass throbs and glaring dance synth. A lot of it is pretty dancey, and the atmosphere is fantasically dark. Waves of sound flood in one from side and crash against sharp, jagged shores of beats, throwing distorted screams, orchestras and synths around like the wreckage of an oil tanker. If you like electro, dubstep or anything dark and ominous, get in on this folks.

It's available on their Bandcamp page (click here) under a "name your price" policy, so you can grab it for free if you want. Two tracks streaming down below:







Like I've said, I don't know exactly what will become of Witch House this year. I do know however that quite a few Witch House artists have emerged out of the influx that are actually pretty talented at making electronic music. So watch out in future guys. Hope you find these ✝ DE△D VIRGIN ✝ tracks as cool as I do. Best Witches.