Traverse City, MI · witch-house · drone

Salem

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Witch house's originators — screwed vocals over cavernous drones, still faintly sinister, a genre's whole aesthetic in one band.

Salem formed in 2006 after John Holland, living in Chicago, struck up a friendship with Jack Donoghue and reconnected with Heather Marlatt, a friend from his school days who moved in with him. The trio began working out of Holland's home studio, releasing the early EPs Yes I Smoke Crack and Water in 2008.

The group drew on chopped-and-screwed hip-hop, shoegaze and drone, pitching down vocals over heavy bass and thick washes of noise. Their debut album, King Night, appeared in 2010 and was named to year-end lists by outlets including AllMusic, NME and The Quietus.

The band's March 2010 performance at the Fader Fort during South by Southwest was booed off stage and widely mocked as one of the more notorious sets of the era. Even so, the murky, uncomfortable sound of King Night was credited with defining witch house, and Salem remain the group most closely tied to the tag.

Salem went quiet after 2012, its last release the 2011 EP I'm Still in the Night, until photographer Wolfgang Tillmans announced a new album on Instagram in 2016. A full revival came in 2020 with the mixtape Stay Down, issued without Marlatt, who said publicly she had been forced out of the group.

The single "Starfall" appeared in September 2020, followed a month later by the second album, Fires in Heaven, ten years after the debut. Live activity resumed gradually, including a surprise DJ set for Supreme in Chicago in 2022 and the band's first solo live performance in twelve years the following year; in 2026 Salem again partnered with Supreme and surprise-released Red Dragon, a compilation of B-sides and unreleased material alongside four new tracks.

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