For Millennials, witch house was a quickly passing fad that each of its speculated originators seem to deny culpability for; for Gen Z, it’s become something of a religion. Fusing trap music with an aesthetic landing somewhere between horrorcore rap and rave culture, it’s hard to imagine now why so few artists from the OG scene accept ownership for what they created. It doesn’t help that Salem, the duo most heavily associated with the sound, went AWOL for a full decade after releasing their debut record only to return with a follow-up more interested in cloud rap atmospherics and shoegaze textures than the innovative sounds of King Night.
It’s no surprise that Salem are among the primary influences for Sematary, just one among countless young rappers deeply indebted to the nocturnal, chopped-and-screwed experiments found on that 2010 record. Taking each of witch house’s reference points and refurbishing them for a uniquely visceral backwoods terror that recalls SoundCloud rap filtered through the first season of True Detective, the songwriter’s latest single “Wendigo” goes so far as to tap into the current shoegaze fad with whirring guitar riffs backing his distorted-beyond-intelligibility bars (it sort of recalls the brief post-witch-house lo-fi movement spearheaded by Blood Sister, Grave Babies, et al). The music video also pays homage to Texas Chainsaw Massacre, because of course it should.
While there may not be any surprises in the tracks he picked (well, maybe barring Billy Idol), Sematary listed 15 songs that helped him shape his sound from his teenage years to the present day, dissecting how each one sparked his creativity. Check out the “Wendigo” video here, and find his words below.
Yung Lean, “Immortal”
When I was, like, 15 I was into Yung Lean and this was—and is—my favorite track off Warlord. The whole album is very cold and dead and deranged and isolated and druggy, which was how I felt and was living when I was a teenager. This track in particular is the coldest and deadest and most drugged-out on the album. Lean sounds like a fucked up Gucci Mane rapping over crazy New Order or System of a Down demo guitars. Weird combos like that are always what I look for in music, and putting the most fucked-up song on the project—no hook, no nothing, just a verse and some weird singing—as the opener to your huge album is a bold ass move I still find very inspiring.
Gucci Mane, “I Think I Want Her”
Growing up I spent a lot of time on the internet and was always drawn to the hard-to-find, buried old trap mixtapes with insane titles and covers. Made me feel like I’d uncovered something ancient and special on these YouTube uploads from nine years ago, where the last comment is from 2011. Zaytoven’s production with the short plug 808s and claps and bells and Gucci Mane just going bar after bar after bar of shit talking and threats and the loud ass DJ tags and the general insane vibe…very impactful to me. These type of three-verses-hook-three-times songs are a lost art with how trap music mostly is now, I feel.
Salem, “Redlights” (2008 Version)
Salem is my favorite band. Listening to their cracked-out, busted synths—and also Sad Boys/Whitearmor/Yung Sherman/Yung Gud’s cloudier synths—had a huge impact on me as a teenager. This is the all-time salem classic number-one smash hit song right here, if they ever made one. Grungy guitars and broken synths with, like, shoegaze-y vocals. Clearly homemade and super DIY sounding…pain and sadness and isolation. It doesn’t get better than this.
Gucci Mane, “My Shadow” (Salem Remix)
Salem’s Gucci remixes were some of the only music I could find that combined the witch-house, pained/drugged synths I love so much with straight gangster shit-talking rapping—and Gucci is the best ever at that. These remixes were my inspo to try and combine witch house–ish synths with rapping. Nothing sounds like these remixes at all, so I’ve tried to follow the blueprint they put down. The original Gucci song “My Shadow” is also incredible. I made a sort of cover of this remix in 2020 when I was 19.
Gucci Mane, “Round One” (Salem Remix)
The “My Shadow” remix is a lot bigger and denser-feeling, whereas this song is super simple—just some synths and drums and a Gucci acapella. That the synths get across (at least to me) so much pain and isolation and also still feel gangster and fit with Gucci straight dissing his opps over it is incredible and very moving, something I’m always chasing in my synth work. When I was a teenager I’d get high as fuck and try to combine, like, witch house and cloud rap songs with Gucci or Black Kray songs in free DJ software, record and export the track, and then slow the whole thing down like DJ Screw—that is the coolest music has ever sounded, to me. This is one of the rare songs that already kinda sounds like that without messing with it.
OJ da Juiceman, “Early Morning Trapping”
Old-school Lex Luger productions for Brick Squad is some of the greatest trap music ever. The insane snare rolls and 808s that are like doing snare 808 rolls themselves are a huge inspiration to me. I’m always trying to push what they did on these old tracks further and combine them with newer styles of production. I always used to listen to this when I’d drive my old Honda Civic to work in the morning when I was trying my hardest to make music happen. Got me through a lot of shitty grind days.
Chief Keef, “Bouncin”
“I think my choppa gay, I pulled him out the closet.”
Salem, “Trapdoor”
Probably my favorite song ever. Nothing sounds like it to this day—same for the whole King Night album. When I used to go to parties and I didnt know anyone and was just getting fucked up near groups of people but alone, this song was how that felt. Also the way it feels like it’s about giving up, but also feels like “Fuck you, if life is shitty I’ll keep going, bitch.” That’s a theme that all of my music is about and is supposed to make you feel like.
Three 6 Mafia, “Fuckin wit Dis Click”
In the fucked-up, dying-ass world I’ve seen growing up, I find the opening bars about the end of the world insanely relatable: “The end of the world, I can see it coming / So I pack my nine millimeter and I start huntin’.” And the rest of the track being straight demonic shit and thugging and a crazy anti-Christian sample in the intro—just hard as fuck. Another top-10 song ever for me.
Salem, “Sick”
Super-occult rapping over an old Gucci sort of beat with choirs and synths—another track that combined a bunch of things that shouldn’t work but comes out hard as fuck. Very inspiring. The whole King Night album is the greatest music ever to me for that reason. It’s just song after song like that. On my first-ever tour, the Butcher House tour, we played the title song before I came out.
Billy Idol, “Dancing with Myself”
I’ve studied long and hard many different kinds of music with good hooks to learn the art of writing a good fucking hook. This song is a classic banger—I’ve listened to it since I heard it as a kid in some movie I can’t remember. Good hook.
Clan of Xymox, “A Day”
The guitar in this is insane. Feels broken, alien, and hardly like a guitar at all—something I’m always drawn to in music. I’m constantly trying to make my synths and guitars sound like this style of insane guitar.
Max B, “I’m So High”
I deal a lot with paranoia, and this song’s straight flexing bars back to back with paranoia and pure wrath and almost, like, self-hatred at moments is super hard and relatable to me. Max B is the greatest, and I think we have him to thank for singing boldly and high and out of tune in rap for legends like Future and Young Thug. I’m like 10 generations down from him. Free Max B.
Eddie Noack, “Psycho”
Creepy, ancient country song with psycho murder lyrics. When I get drunk off Jack Daniels with friends or alone I always end up blasting this and singing filthy karaoke. Rural isolation and cabin fever that makes you feel murderous is something I’ve felt a lot in my life, and hearing songs about it is comforting to me. Also has a weirdly huge amount of bass for a country song from the ’60s—it bumps in the whip like an 808.
Black Kray & Sickboyrari, “Stevie J and Joseline”
Black Kray did, like, everything everyone’s ever done in the underground scene literally five years before it all became popular. Literally everything. This is one of his best songs and music videos, sort of an R&B gangster country song produced by Greaf. The busted-sounding distortion and Auto-Tune is hard as fuck over a guitar with old-school-sounding trap drums. Haven’t heard a song that sounds exactly like this one ever. DIY mixing is the hardest shit to me, and a big reason I taught myself how to do it myself. I made a song on my Butcher House mixtape called “Smokin Out da Grave” that’s sort of a cover of this song, but made my own. Doesn’t compare to the original at all, but I’m proud of it. Grateful I got to work with Kray—he’s a living legend.
