WITCHES – In the Chaos of a Friday Night (Within the Woods CD single)
Posted: February 22nd, 2006, by Simon MinterEx-eeebleee frontman Dave Griffiths has a knack for writing obtuse, vaguely sinister lyrics and delivering them in a laconic, Bolan-inflected style which serves to accentuate their weirdness. The subject matter of the four songs here is a mystery to me – I’m sure they’re about something – but I prefer to enjoy the sound of the singing rather than the content. For a self-released single this is determined and ambitious stuff; music constructed with the typical drums/bass/guitar instrumentation is overlaid with trumpets and piano, then bent double with subtly odd constructions. Like Smog or Mercury Rev, Witches can take an average, well-written pop song and turn it into something special by adding certain touches of arrangement and contrast. At times the recording quality struggles to contain the vision at work here, but this is an impressive debut which doesn’t buckle under its own complexity. It takes a lot of skill to create songs which seem initially simplistic but which grow and develop on repeated listens, and Witches have a lot of skill.
Simon Minter
Simon joined diskant after falling on his head from a great height. A diskant legend in his own lifetime Simon has risen up the ranks through a mixture of foolhardiness and wit. When not breaking musical barriers with top pop combo Sunnyvale Noise Sub-element or releasing records in preposterously exciting packaging he relaxes by looking like Steve Albini.
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