In the great hall of Denton music, with its jazz and folk and pop, there certainly must be a basement. In that basement lie the darker, sludgier, more cavernous bands and artists to come out of this town, and one of the newest basement dwellers is BloodWitch.
Members Nick Tallichet and Colby Weiland combine the gloomier side of drone, noise and black metal with an affinity for rap into a blend that, though seemingly incompatible, reflects those influences keenly and without incongruity.
"Percussively it's all hip-hop influenced for me," Weiland says, "but both of us listen to a healthy amount of noise."
The band's slow, minimal songs are rhythmic and trance-inducing, with Tallichet's droning guitar backed by industrial percussion and Weiland's sparse, high-pitched vocals awash in both reverb and spookiness, resulting in a live set that has all the ambiance of a satanic ritual.
"Initially it was supposed to be more on the stoner-metal, drone, end-of-it-all side," Weiland says. "Now it's just turned into industrial psychedelic."
The pair joined up just weeks before the 35 Conferette and played their first public set at an unofficial daytime show during the festival.
"I asked Colby if he wanted to do something because I knew he played drums, and he was like, 'I have a drum machine, that would be cooler,'" Tallichet says.
Tallichet was in Sans Soliel previously and sought Weiland out despite the fact that the last band he'd been in was the Boxing Nuns, a Christian punk band that broke up when Weiland was in the seventh grade.
The move worked, however, and BloodWitch's sound has been continually growing and evolving into something more articulate and well-developed.
"When we started writing music, it sounded completely different than what we're doing now," Tallichet says. "Now we have more structured stuff. We actually have practice."
The band has become more serious over the past year. Pleased with their work as well the positive audience feedback, BloodWitch have become part of the Dallas/Fort Worth noise community.
"There is an interesting scene of minimalism right now. We're just two people, and that seems to be a common trend," Weiland says.
Joining the ranks of such acts as Midnite Society, Pinkish Black and the Kiwi Sisters, the band occupies a growing space of electronic music duos making dark and off-kilter material.
The band can be seen next as part of an art show curated by Tallichet at 212 S. Walton St. in Deep Ellum on December 3 and 4.
