Got some new up and coming Witch House for you this week. M△S▴C△RA is a band, as well as just one guy from Pennsylvania, though initially you’d think they were from France. I love how you just can’t tell these things anymore! Online it’s the work of one person, while live it becomes a duo. There’s a high musical output here, which is nice; I’ve been getting a little bored of new Witch House projects only having, say, four tracks, at least one of them being a remix of Lil Wayne. This is also a band that avoids Myspace, which right now is a big plus; the M△S▴C△RA Facebook page has its own music player so it just totally sidesteps any need to ever go to that horrible site.

All the hallmarks of classic Witch House are there with M△S▴C△RA: the mysterious anonymity, the pop remixes, the obtuse vaguely occult imagery, multiple free downloads, and the in-genre collaborations. Musically this is a project that covers a lot of ground, both in styles and influences. Definitely not just a bedroom and laptop project. Just check out the video!

As a live duo things change up a bit with the added element of a whole mix of instruments and effects. Strangely, the sound transforms into more of a post rock/experimental noise thing. They like to describe it as part Witch House part Shoeblaze which is a genre title I’ve never heard of but like immensely, even though I have no idea what it means.

Live it’s a blissed out, rhythmic dance experience quite different from the Drag and Witch House elements of the recorded work, though even here there is a glossy dream-dance element to everything. Listen carefully and you can hear Britney vocals coming through the waves of static and drone. There are also quite a range of drag remixes on their Soundcloud page that manage to slow things down without making them un-danceable. Click through to have a listen and download.

M△S▴C△RA & sLOW HEAD- ωαям ƒøøʟ (a/$/l?) мїж by M△S▴C△RA

₡aяїЬвёaй Glцё (Mask Era Remix) by M△S▴C△RA

Listening to all this you end up feeling that M△S▴C△RA is the project of someone who’s really enjoying making music in a very creative way, exploring the whole Witch House scene while using it in different ways, whether it be recorded or live.

Having written all this I now realize that the bands name, which I initially thought was pronounced “Mascara”, could actually be “Masacara”- think of all the massacre implications that pronunciation gives it. Cool!!

- Fokkawolfe