Drag, Witch House, Rape Gaze

filthy light thief — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 11:18:18 -0800

There was a brouhaha around the name of a particular micro-genre, tossed out amongst other titles for a new genre variant: rape-gaze. The discussion started with a listing of genre names applied to the band Salem, a band whose debut album ranked high in some year-end charts. That specific genre title was coined by the group Creep, who chose the label themselves as some alternative to the more prevalent "witch house" genre title. More music and music pondering inside. Creep rid themselves of that title when there was increased discussion of the term, and according to their MySpace profile, now classify themselves as "trip-hop." While Trip Hop has it's own noisy history, none that evoke the same gut reaction as "rape gaze". For some, the genre name has stuck, with the genre setting off a list of worst genre names ever (though that list seems to have been compiled by genre title alone, not listening to the actual music):

10. Happy Hardcore (sample track) 9. Zolo (sample track) 8. Paisley Underground (previsouly; sample video) 7. Glitch-Hop (sample video) 6. Furniture Music (sample of a live performance) 5. Chillwave (recently on the Blue) 4. Grebo (sample track) 3. Hi-NRG (sample live video) 2. Hard Bop (sample track) 1. Psybient (sample track)

If you'd like to hear a bit more of the drag / witch house / crunk shoegaze, Pitchfork has a sampler of tracks. If you're trying to follow the bands now, some of their names have changed from awkward series of symbols to names of letters, like the change of /// ▲▲▲ \\ to Horse MacGyver (Vimeo link). More videos: Creep's YT collection currently includes 3 videos: Intro, Jessica King, and Hot Shit (which is actually a remix of a Baghdaddy track) YT user cyclop2121 has a handful of videos made by Cosmotropia de Xam, focusing more on the distortion of noise (and video) than the Salem sound. For some middle ground, there is oOoOO, who also get into soft pop realms. If the idea of gothic influences and southern rap blending together sound strange to you, check Salem's remixes of Gucci Mane. But Salem isn't only focused on the durrty south, as seen with their remix of Radiohead and Röyksopp.

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Drag, Witch House, Rape Gaze

It's just like back in Rimini in '85!