Review Summary: spooky kitsch
Witch house is weird. It’s a young genre, and arguably an example of the contemporary trend of arbitrarily-drawn, bizarre micro-genres. There is an odd melting pot of influences - from a basis in chopped and screwed hip-hop, to elements associated with the goth acts of the 1980s and even industrial noise. Lifeless Existence heightens the eclecticism by working in the style of “witch-trap with black metal and hardcore techno influence.” In this way, despite the minimal cover art and nomenclature,
desolation. tends to the other extreme and is, well, kinda gauche. However, that is part of the record’s charm and is something distinct from the disassociated, languid feel of a lot of witch house.
The genre is commonly associated with slowed tempos and hazy, distorted and atmospheric elements. That’s pretty much antithetical to the ethos of something like speedcore (i.e. hardcore techno) and in this way the most endearing moments of
desolation. are when these more intense elements seem to bubble to the surface. At points the EP seems on the verge of bursting out of its heady stupor and transforming into the dancefloor stomper that the heavy drum kick might suggest. Similarly, there’s flashes of lo-fi roughness around the edges (distorted vocals, hard low-end nudges, buzzes of static), that prevent the sweet synths from becoming sickly. Conceptually, it feels like the key underpinning of the record is the juxtaposition of the smooth, warm synths - like a picture-perfect evening on the beach - against the threatening darkness. The distorted, indecipherable mumbling (“5VN & M00N”), and the howling/screaming sounds that are buried low in the mix and feature so briefly as to be easily missed (in “5VFF3R / 5VFF0C473”) are little gestures that characterise something seemingly straightforward into a more unsettling manner.
This approach is particularly evident towards the end of the record in “The past is louder than anything i hear right now” (huh, I haven’t listened to TDEP in a while). This track punctures the haziness and soaring synths with a battering, uptempo beat. It glitches up and then resumes before finally failing in a whisper of static. Sure, that might sound tacky - and the record as a whole is an odd mix of the bombastic and atmospheric - but there’s a playfulness here that’s infectious and also something implicit that's quite affecting.
