Witched - Witched

Witched

Witched
​self-released; 2020

​3.6 out of 5

By Jamie Funk

Witched is a solo project from Victoria BC Canada. The artist recently released a self-titled five- song EP Witched. This is lo-fi music that combines some elements of grunge, punk and to a lesser degree surf.

The EP gets going with “The Possibility to Forget” and revolves around a 4/4 beat, distorted guitar and what sounds like pained vocals which reminded me of Beth Gibbons from Portishead. That being said there aren’t that many lyrics in the song. It felt largely instrumental in the beginning. As the song progresses there are a couple of solid grooves and it gets more intense towards the end. It was a great start.

Up next is “Revenge Fantasy” which sounded somewhere between PJ Harvey and Kim Gordon whom I love. I liked the dark sort of tortured mood. Next up is “Beware” which at first introduces some organ playing. The mixing is better on this song than the previous two and the surf rock groove works really well. It’s this more dark version of surf rock and that bass line is legit. The song sort of lingers around and there are various versions of a similar groove. As much as I liked this song I think it went on about a minute too long.

“Say Nothing, ARE Nothing” is a very cool sounding song. I again really liked this mix of dark surf and punk. The vocals, similar to other songs, are limited and I actually wanted to hear more. Last up is “Root & Stone” which is a bit more shoegaze and sounds like one big phaser pedal with percussive elements and well delivered vocals. 

As an engineer my main critique is about the mixing which can easily be fixed. There are way too many high frequencies on these recordings (around 5k to 10k). It may sound good while mixing to boost these but if you do beware it can cause ear fatigue and even your ears to ring. It’s the lower mids which bands like My Bloody Valentine found out are the ones that could be boosted so you can turn up the music and it seems loud but you don’t have your ears ring. At any rate the frequencies was different enough on every song that it was noticeable and took away from the cohesion. If you aren't working with an engineer I would at least suggest a mastering engineer whose job is to create a similar sonic imprint on every song. It also may help to put a spectrum analyzer on the master buss so you can see what frequencies are being played.

​I thought this was a very solid EP and hopefully the first of many more to come. There are some great ideas and I thought the songwriting was good as well. My one request is that I’d like the vocals to be a little more utilized because when I heard them I often wanted more. I’m looking forward to hearing more from the promising artist.

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