The musical genre "witch house" was coined in 2009 as a joke to describe the occult-themed house music that was being made by producer Travis Edegy. The meme proliferated on blogs, reaching Pitchfork Media and eventually coming to describe a new genre of music with heavy ties to industrial house music, noise, hip-hop, and even 80s goth music. (wiki) Bands such as White Ring, Salem, oOoOO, and †‡† (pronounced Ritualz) have become synonymous with the sound and aesthetic of this new genre, if witch house can really be called a new genre of music. The aesthetic of this type of music involves crosses, occult symbols and imagery, and it has borrowed the dark colors and gloom of 80s goth subculture. Edegy, who produces under the stage name Pictureplanes, said in January 2011, "No one really knows what witch house is, but there are people consciously trying to make witch house now." Even the frontman of the Deftones, Chino Moreno, has recently released a "witch house" EP in August under the stage name †††, a case where a mainstream artist is experimenting with this emergent underground sound.
There is a digital/virtual component of this project, since the emergence of witch house has depended heavily on the internet, communities such as Last.fm, blogging, and remix culture. Even the trend of witch house artists embedding digital symbols - especially crosses and upside-down crosses - in their names and their song titles, seems to be tied to the digital ways many people consume new/underground music, through Youtube, services like Last.fm, and even iTunes. However, there can and should also be a live component to this project, as witch house is moving from Last.fm, Youtube and blogs into live music culture. The current AS220 schedule has Dream Boat, "creator of monolithic witch house sounds," scheduled to play in Providence on October 9th. This ethnographic research project could utilize both perspectives - from the internet communities that began this "genre," and from within the live culture where it is just now emerging - to gain a sense of the current ways in which new music subgenres and subcultures emerge, and who is participating in subcultures like "witch house," if such a subculture could be said to really exist (whether on- or offline).
It will be quite exciting to learn how this subculture comes into being. What I’m actually the most interested in is seeing how you decide what criterias/processes must be fulfilled for a movement( in lack of other words) to be considered a subculture. This is a project that I can see having an impact on how later projects on emerging subculture is approached. Other investigations related to this that I think would be great to address if possible are: if you can show how the digital aspects of “witch house” affects its path of progression in comparison to other subcultures that does not have such a big virtual aspect. Also, I think it would be interesting to see how constituents of other subcultures (especially virtual-emphasis ones) view “witch-house”. Do they see it as a “legitimate” subculture? And what are their reactions (if any exists) to the emergence of “witch-house”’?
ReplyDeleteAs someone who is very much interested in Witch House (listening to Crim3s now, check them out if you haven't heard their stuff,) I am very excited to see where this project goes. I've heard a lot about the digital culture of Witch House, so I'm excited to see how you'll explore the local scene? Are the local groups from Providence, or are the venues you'll be exploring bringing in these artists? How are they finding out about them? I know a search for †‡† and other symboled artists are hard to search for on google and you need a certain insider knowledge to get a hold of their music, so while Witch House is very digital, you need some sort of cultural capital to even find out about it -- are you going to be exploring that at all?
ReplyDelete-M4††
Selfishly speaking, this project offers a great example of why I love teaching this class -- I've never heard of witch house and am excited to learn more. Examining the emergence/definition process for a new subgenre is always challenging, but it can also make for very rich ethnographic work if you can locate the on-the-ground and virtual sites where scene participants are busily hashing out assorted standards/definitions/histories/values.
ReplyDeleteA few readings that might prove useful:
Lysloff, René T. A. 2003. "Musical Life in Softcity: An Internet Ethnography." In Music and Technoculture, eds. René T. A. Lysloff and Leslie C. Gay, Jr. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Jennings, David. 2007. Net, Blogs and Rock 'n' Roll: How Digital Discovery Works and What it Means for Consumers, Creators and Culture. London: Nicholas Brealey Pub. [This a bit more popular than scholarly, but as far as I'm concerned it would be okay to use it toward your "scholarly sources" requirement.]
Sinnreich, Aram. 2010. Mashed Up: Music, Technology, and the Rise of Configurable Culture. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.
Messaris, Paul and Lee Humphreys, eds. 2006. Digital Media: Transformations in Human Communication. New York: Peter Lang. [skim the table of contents and see what chapters might be most useful]
This is a fascinating topic and one I know nothing about. I really like that your project involves ethnography of a live show alongside virtual ethnography. As Kiri mentions it is sometimes difficult to investigate a genre of music as it is emerging, as its terms and definitions have not been set and thus people cannot often reflect on them – Pictureplanes’ quote is thus really interesting. That said, the fact that this music draws on pre-existing genres, such as industrial house and goth will mean that you can see how musicians and fans describe this music in relation to these other genres, particularly since there is a ‘remix’ element of this music. I second Kiri’s scholarly article suggestions, but I will email you if I can think of others. I look forward to seeing where you take this research.
ReplyDelete