There’s one thing just a little eerie about the way in which the band Witch Put up got here collectively. A couple of years again, Scottish singer-songwriter Dylan Fraser discovered himself touring commonly from Edinburgh to London, and would use the five-hour practice journey to hearken to new music; after stumbling upon Alaska Reid’s 2020 EP Large Bunny, after which masking one of many American musician’s tracks on his Instagram tales, they set a date for a writing session whereas Reid was visiting London from her hometown of Los Angeles.
The night time earlier than they had been as a consequence of hit the studio, they ran into one another at a Charli XCX gig. Then, after attending to chatting, they realized they each grew up in cities of the identical identify: Reid within the rural metropolis of Livingston, Montana; Fraser within the city of Livingston, simply west of Edinburgh. And then, after they began making music collectively and had been struggling to think about a reputation, Reid visited a people museum in northern England and found a “witch submit”—a Seventeenth-century superstition that entails carving crosses onto your hearth to stop witches from coming down the chimney and wreaking havoc in your house. Reid kissed it and despatched an image to Fraser, who identified that the carving was really the St. Andrew’s saltire: the heraldic image discovered on the Scottish flag.
“There have been fairly a couple of witchy, bizarre little happenings alongside the way in which,” says Fraser over Zoom from his residence in London. Reid, who joins the decision from Los Angeles, provides: “It’s felt just a little bizarre at occasions, but it surely’s at all times felt simple.”
Their music as Witch Put up is the product of this uncommon and considerably mysterious inventive alchemy—which you’ll be able to chalk up partly to their shared obsession with folklore and storytelling, but in addition to the way in which their voices intertwine and even, at moments, start to blur. You possibly can hear all of that on their new EP, Butterfly, introduced right now and releasing on March 20 through Partisan Data.
The primary single, “Fear Angel”—additionally out right now—begins with a metallic guitar strum that could possibly be straight off a ’90s alt-rock anthem, accompanied by Fraser’s pressing, anxious croon: “I’ve accomplished all the pieces proper, so why is all the pieces fallacious?” Reid’s ethereal, richly textured vocals float in on the refrain: “Why do you are worried, angel?” Because the tune unfolds, their voices start to braid collectively like twin strands of ivy—a Scottish lilt and a Montana twang—creeping throughout a tough stone wall of fuzzy grunge guitars. It’s attractive to hearken to, just a little cryptic, and so catchy. (All are working themes in Witch Put up’s physique of labor, which, because the duo joined forces in 2024, has included a handful of singles and an EP, Beast, launched final April.)
