Witch House: An Intro To The Microgenre That Influenced Everyone From Tyler, The Creator To ASAP Rocky

Deep in the digital catacombs of the Internet lived a corner of music you’d hardly remember, let alone find, even with a map pointing you directly toward it. Witch house, the electronic, micro-genre best known for dark, sonic landscapes littered with stuttering drum machines and its pitched-down, reverb-soaked vocals, ruled the underground music scene, even if just for a moment. Years later, its influence holds true.

The “witch house” moniker was penned by Denver-based electronic musician Travis Egedy (a.k.a. Pictureplane), back in 2010. The artist told The A.V. Club, “[We] were joking about the sort of house music we make, [calling it] witch house because it’s, like, occult-based house music.” The joke took on a life of its own, spawning its most notable leaders in Salem, Balam Acab, oOoOO, White Ring, and Clams Casino. 

Even with a moment of prominence so brief (2009–11) before collapsing back into its own obscurity, the enigmatic sub-genre summoned a handful of artists that would cement themselves as music’s next foundation. The short run made it all the more impressive that the underwater howls would continue to ripple on through the mainstream of modern music today.

Heavily inspired by the “chopped and screwed" hip-hop production pioneered by Houston’s late DJ Screw, witch house’s signature sound was almost exclusively juxtaposed with montages of vintage horror and old film, occult imagery, and cryptic messaging. Often, the names that artists chose incorporated unicode characters and nonsensical aliases, making them nearly unsearchable. Artists like GL▲SS †33†H, ///▲▲▲\\\ (a.k.a. VOID) and more seemed to reject mainstream access and carved deeper niches into the depths of the underground scene with their cult followings. Ironically, it may have caused the swift unraveling of the microgenre’s Internet presence due to the self-imposed inaccessibility, but not before a few key artists took notice.

Most famously, A$AP Rocky, The Weeknd, and Kanye West tapped into witch house early with songs like “Bass,” “The Fall,” and “Black Skinhead” respectively. That influence came by way of producer Clams Casino and electronic group Salem, who were instrumental in putting their stamp on the hip-hop genre. Over the years that followed, the sound's pioneers would line the album credits of familiar names like Partynextdoor, Mac Miller, Lil Peep, and Joji. Even Tyler, the Creator’s earliest showings, while being mostly self-produced, channel the microgenre’s signature textured aesthetics in his Bastard mixtape and debut Goblin. Tyler and fellow producer Left Brain would spread that style across Odd Future’s ecosystem into the mid-2010s with tracks like “Rella” from The OF Tape Vol. 2, and title track “Earl” off Earl Sweatshirt’s debut mixtape. And while the list goes on of notable artists dabbling in the mysterious realms of witch house, here are six key tracks from the era that best encapsulate the microgenre.