Like many, I was initially bewitched(!) by the sounds of witch house-y bands like SALEM, White Ring, oOoOO, and have fond memories of driving around South St. Louis at night, blasting dark, oozing bass and pretending that I’m a cold-hearted badass. It was nice … in that dark, cold, make-believe way. Some have criticized the trend, calling the music derivative and its makers overprivileged hipsters with too much time on their hands.** I just got bored.
Enter Phantasma Disques and their non-profit compilation: A Witch House and Occvlt Guide to Twin Peaks. This is the perfect application for this genre — a culturally-significant anchor that draws a little more fanfare than White Ring’s sampling of the gunshot sound effect from “Thug Love.”
The tribute compilation was released on Cosmotropia de Xam’s Phantasma Disques last month, in a limited edition of just 125 copies (only about 20 are left so hurry and order yours). The CD comes with impressive, flipside cover art and a bizarre but to Twin Peaks fans extremely appealing tracklist:
1. MATER SUSPIRIA VISION feat. HOW I QUIT CRACK – (These are the last 7 days in the life of) Laura Palmer
2. ANDRAS – Half Heart
3. DEATHCOAST – The Nightingale
4. § (SILVER STRAIN) – A Blue Rose
5. Kim Cascone and Ceremonial Dagger – through the darkness
6. OS OVNI – Just you and I
7. AAIMON – Into the Night
8. UNISON – Questions in a World of Blue
9. MULHOLLAND DRIVE – Burst into fire and the angels wouldnt help you
10. I†† – X-RAYS
11. \\\^?^/// – Are you Laura Palmer?
12. Zombelle – Dweller on the Threshold
13. ANGST – Keep The Fear From Your Mind
14. Die Hexen – Inside the black Lodge
15. Julee Cruise – Mystereees of Love (Excepter Remix)
16. Ghostrider – Traces to NowhereNote that Kim Cascone, who collaborated on track five, was David Lynch’s assistant music editor on Twin Peaks and Wild At Heart!
As far as I can tell, the listing for Volume 1 on Phantasma Disques has disappeared, but Volume 2 was just released and is available for order.
The Silver Strain video below is by far my favorite track from the collection.
§ – A Blue Rose [Twin Peaks] from § on Vimeo.
** One critic of SALEM made a brilliant “anti-witch house” mix. A Ben Frost track followed by Waka Flocka Flame? Yes, please.
Nomadic Reverie 
My movie-making club is doing an adaption of Terry Pratchett’s “Men at Arms” and I’m in charge of doing the script. By the way, we are not making it for any sort of profit so no copyright laws are being violated. Anyway, this scene is just the main character, Captain Vimes, ordering breakfast and has absolutely nothing to do with the plot whatsoever, so a couple of people think we should cut the scene. I say it’s funny enough to stay in. What do you think?
(Vimes enters dirty restaurant, HARGA’S HOUSE OF RIBS. Early morning, sits, sees HARGA a fat mustachioed man who is constantly smiling, revealing not-so-pretty teeth. He is cleaning glasses.)
Cut To: Vimes, sighing and looking like something the cat dragged in.
VIMES: I’d like some eggs, with the yolks real hard but the whites so runny they drip like treacle. And I want bacon- that special bacon with all the little bony nodules dripping in grease that makes your arteries go clang by just looking at it.
HARGA: Tough order.
VIMES: You managed to do it yesterday. And gimme some coffee, black as a moonless midnight.
HARGA: How black’s that, then?
VIMES: Oh, pretty damn black, I should think.
HARGA: Not necessecarily. You get more stars on a moonless night. Stands to reason. They show up more. Can be quite bright on a moonless night.
VIMES: (exasperated) An overcast moonless night, then.
Cut To: Harga, looking at Vimes curiously.
HARGA: Cumulus or cirro-nimbus?
VIMES: I’m sorry, what did you say?
HARGA: You gets city lights reflected off cumulus, because it’s low-lying, see. Mind you, you can get high-altitude light scatter off ice crystals in—
VIMES: (In a hollow voice) –A moonless night that is as black as this coffee, got it?
HARGA: Right!
Cut To: Vimes, very angry now.
VIMES: And a doughnut. A doughnut as doughnutty as a doughnut made of flour, sugar, water, one large egg, a pinch of yeast, cinnamon to taste and jam, jelly, or rat filling depending on national or species preference, OK? Not as doughnutty in any way metaphorical. Just a doughnut. One doughnut.
HARGA: A doughnut.
VIMES: Yes.
HARGA: (Looking hurt) You only had to say, you know