Enough With The Genres: False’s “Just A Little Time”
Maybe I’m just getting old, confused or tiring of organizing iTunes genre tags, but I’m completely oblivious to this “witch house” trend starting to gain momentum. It’s become a very divisive trend perfectly represented by spotlight band SALEM, a group some hail as rap-influenced visionaries while others view them as a near-gag or, worse. I had the, uhh, privilege of hearing the group’s debut album over Christmas and yeah the actual rapping warrants a lot of Hipster Runoff jokes, but for the most part thought “why imitate M83 in such a boring way?”
Tokyo’s False seems to pledge allegiance to this scene, as evidenced by a “friend’s” section loaded with “witch house” regulars (and Owen Pallet). Some of False’s songs also submerge themselves in similar noisy, droney and eventually boring sounds. Yet “Just A Little Time” manages to sound more like the bedroom dreaming of the Cuz Me Pain crew, dropping the tacky creepiness reminiscent of a K-Mart Halloween decoration in favor of unease. False finds a great beat then lets triumphant neon synths fly over it. False works a Vincent-Price-ish sample underneath all of it, and that genuinely strange voice…plus some well-timed bass gurgles…give “Just A Little Time” a very real sense of strangeness a thousand car-crash sounds could never achieve. Listen here.
