Originally posted May 20, 2020
I have been listening to this album in pieces over the past few months while immersing myself in the world of witchcraft and magic but I finally sat down and listened to it in its entirety. While many individual artists have contributed to my love of magical music, in this case it’s a collection of artists and their label, Eighth Tower Records, that takes the focus of black magic and witchcraft into the world of dark ambient in order to transport us to the land of the United Kingdom. They do this across the centuries and through presenting very differing views of witches and their storied pasts.
The cover gives it away to a certain degrees - we can expect a unique experience, witchy tinted and cloaked in dark atmospheres and sound environments designed to get under your skin as you move from act to act, song to song, steeping yourself deeper and deeper in the mythology, misogyny and mystery of witchcraft.
Stories and songs range from interview sound clips, dark ambient landscapes, and a unique approach to mastering and production peppered with witchy foley that is sometimes curious and quirky and sometimes downright dark and dangerous.
On the bandcamp page for Witchcraft and Black Magic in the United Kingdom, Eighth Tower Records quotes an article written by Brett Almond on holisticshop.co.uk, "Witchcraft has had a fascinating and turbulent history in the UK. Through periods of persecution and prejudice, it has survived to the present day and many people still practise the tradition now.
From the 7th century onwards, attitudes towards the practise began to change. During the medieval period, fears over so-called ‘black magic’ began to emerge. This referred to the power of witchcraft to bring harm to others. An association was also drawn between witchcraft and the devil." Read the full article by Brett Almond here.
The history of witches, their misunderstood intentions, and their persecutions, are numerous enough to fill several record crates if turned to music. And it's no surprise that this music is not all forest faery songs and goddess attributions, sometimes it needs to simply be simply "creepy as fuck" music.
That is accomplished here in a few ways, with each of the single offerings taking a different cue for their inspiration and story-telling and then rendering it in their own unique and magical way - and this is especially clear in the multiple offerings from Daniel Williams.
All in all, I believe “Witchcraft and Black Magic in the United Kingdom” is as unique and collectible as it is dark and spooky, and does a great job representing an excellent subset of the dark ambient skills coming from the UK. Let it get right underneath your skin and work its way into the depths of your awesome witchy soul.