King Night [IAMSOUND,2010]
King Night is the debut album from Michigan/Chicago-based trio Salem, who's been pegged as the creators of their own genre of music, drag (aka witch house). Releasing a series of vinyl EPs over the past two years, Salem have built a fanatical cult following as they evoke certain elements of ethereal shoegaze. Featuring bass-dominated beats, and deep and distorted vocals, this synth duo create a closed and claustrophobic sound.
Salem are a sort of American version of the xx, a three-piece "rock band" incorporating many of the recording procedures and instrumental techniques normally located in the digital domain of dubstep. Their music – we're going to call it downtempo crunk, like John Carpenter's Assault On Precint 13 slowed down to 18rpm by the Rza – is heavier than the xx's, though. There are no potential hit singles from an alternate reality such as Islands on Salem's debut British release, the Water EP, released on the Merok label owned by Big Pink's Milo Cordell. Their lightest, most accessible, moment, Redlights, does approximate the xx's dubstep-Young Marble Giants shtick, but mostly expect instead lots of druggy, bass-dominated beats, droney textures, foreboding synths and distorted, wrong-speed vocals. Both of the latter are extreme: they're either of the high, vaporous, wraithlike female kind from the school of My Bloody Valentine/Cocteau Twins, or they're distorted and deep, monstrous and "male", like some mad parody of masculinity – John Holland, who writes the mainly inscrutable lyrics, is fascinated by the darkest hip-hop.
Their reputation for inscrutability extends beyond their lyrics. Not that the band like to keep a low-profile or anything, but apparently they've yet to meet their manager, they rarely do gigs, they've never been formally photographed, and they've retreated from big city life to places like Michigan and Kansas. On the few occasions that they play live, they tend to do things differently: Holland's face might be painted Native American-style, Heather Marlatt might be dressed as a porcelain doll, the stage will be shrouded in smoke, and there will be lasers and found footage of burning cars, police chases and contortionists synched to the music.
Inevitably, they have accrued near-mythical status, a culty appeal enhanced by the fact that their music is inspired, as they've explained, by "the horror all around us: the decline of industry, the rising unemployment, and the grim, slow death of the Rust Belt in America". Hence, the insular, closed, claustrophobic sound they make, one that reflects both their own environment and their experiences.
Despite being variously described as "dark", "scary", "ghostly" and "terrifying", being named after the notorious Witch Trials and titling their debut EP Yes, I Smoke Crack, Salem are really just normal kids in their early twenties with regular bohemian middle-class backgrounds.
Impress fans of death disco who like to dance in slow motion. On acid. While John Carpenter's Halloween plays on a loop in the background.
