Witch house, also called drag, screwgaze, and haunted house, is a small type of electronic music. It uses high-pitched keyboard sounds, thick, layered bass sounds, and drum patterns similar to those in trap music. In terms of style, it includes themes inspired by mystical or dark imagery, such as those found in gothic culture.

Characteristics

Witch house music uses hip-hop drum machines, noisy background sounds, spooky sound clips, dark melodies inspired by synthpop music, heavy reverb effects, and vocals that are often distorted, reversed, or changed in pitch. These vocals are either rapped or sung. Influences include electronic music styles like ambient house and synth-pop, as well as alternative genres such as shoegaze, industrial, ethereal wave, and gothic rock. Other influences come from noise and drone music. Alongside these, the Houston hip hop scene, especially rapper and producer DJ Screw, played a key role. His special sampling method called "chopped and screwed" is considered a major influence on witch house. The music and style of witch house often include dark, scary, and bleak themes.

The visual style of witch house draws from themes like witchcraft, occultism, shamanism, and horror-themed art, including collages and photographs. Artists in this scene often use images from horror films like The Blair Witch Project, the TV show Twin Peaks, and the fantasy series Charmed. They also include images of popular celebrities from the 2000s. Titles by witch house artists, such as those by Salem and White Ring, often use symbols like triangles, crosses, and Unicode characters. These symbols are used as ways to keep the scene secret and harder to find online. Other notable artists include Mater Suspiria Vision, oOoOO, Crim3s, Balam Acab, and Ritualz.

History and etymology

In the late 2000s, the music style and look of witch house were started by a band called Salem, which was formed in 2006 in Traverse City, Michigan. The term "witch house" was first used in December 2009 as a joke by Travis Egedy, who is professionally known as Pictureplane. Egedy explained this in an interview.

After the term was mentioned in the music website Pitchfork, other online music blogs, newspapers, and websites began using it. Flavorwire noted that even though Egedy did not want to be associated with the term, the genre became real, whether people liked it or not. By the early 2010s, witch house became more popular online because it was linked to other early internet-related music styles, such as chillwave, seapunk, and vaporwave. These styles were shared on websites like Tumblr, Bandcamp, and SoundCloud.

The term "rape gaze" was briefly connected to witch house. It was first used by a music group called Creep, who were based in Brooklyn. The term was listed on their Myspace page and mentioned in the New York Press. However, after a Pitchfork article in 2010 discussed the term, it caused strong criticism and controversy. Pitchfork changed the article, and Creep later said they did not support the term. They explained, "We would never want to advocate sexual violence against any human being. It was a play on words which we never expected to be used as an actual genre."

Decline and legacy

By the early to mid-2010s, witch house became less popular online. Fewer people were interested in the genre because major record labels like Disaro, Black Bvs Records, and Tundra Dubs were not active. Also, during this time, the most well-known artists either stopped working or left the scene.

In 2013, a New York-based electronic music group called Creep, who were once connected to witch house, told Vice magazine, "we're glad witch house is dead." In 2021, Pitchfork said Salem’s unusual live performances helped lead to the genre’s decline. In 2023, Mike Lesuer from Flood magazine wrote that many subgenres from the early 2010s, like witch house, are now hard to find. He said these genres are only discovered by looking for old Tumblr accounts linked to trends like seapunk, which, like witch house, faded from memory because no one could think of a cooler name for them.

In 2013, Kanye West hired Jack Donoghue of Salem to work on his album Yeezus. Jack’s music influenced the song "Black Skinhead."

Some underground hip-hop artists, including Black Kray, Wicca Phase Springs Eternal, and Sematary, said witch house influenced their work. Mainstream artists like A$AP Rocky, PartyNextDoor, and The Weeknd also made music inspired by witch house. In 2024, Pitchfork listed witch house in its article "25 Microgenres That (Briefly) Defined the Last 25 Years," calling it a starting point for darker themes in online rap music.