Available on: Hungry For Power 12″

Witch-house has been used as a cumbersome catch-all tag to describe a range of artists with often little discernible connection, so it’s refreshing to find a pair of musicians who appear to have adopted the term as a statement of intent instead of convenience. Rather than use the sonic signifiers of goth as a gimmick, San Fran duo Amitai Holler and Loric Sih aka Water Borders clearly intended their debut 12″ on Hungry For Power to be a deeply unsettling experience, and in this respect they have succeeded.

Opener ‘Akko’ gets off to an atmospheric start, with an ominous intro leading into an uncompromisingly bleak soundscape complete with cod-Bela Lugosi voice intoning menacingly through a shroud of reverb. The beat is industrial in a literal sense, composed of scattershot metallic samples and a reverberating bass note. The duo have described the track’s subject matter as “men engaged in dangerous and taboo sexual liaisons” and there is certainly a sense of voyeurism here, the result of an intense and uninvited intimacy.

‘Rome’, a collaboration with Glasser, continues the theme but throws the singer’s seductive vocals into the mix to make for a more palatable listening experience. By turns hypnotic, disturbing and palpably erotic, it features various discordant effects fading in and out to create a feeling chaos that is only heightened by its contrast with Glasser’s dulcet tones.

Both of the remixes help lif the tracks from the graveyard onto the dancefloor. Petal grounds ‘Akko’ with a throbbing 4/4 rhythm and monotonous bassline, perforated by otherworldly screeches and later looping the original vocal to head-nodding effect. In contrast Merlo transforms ‘Rome’ with the aid of UK Funky-esque beats and guttural bleeps which, while holding little in common with the rest of the EP, rounds off the package nicely. This is certainly a promising start from the duo, and you won’t forget any of the four productions in a hurry: each one is genuinely unnerving, and the 12″is all the more enjoyable for it.

James Waldron