Psychedelic garage noir duo West Wickhams recently unearthed two new haunting tracks for our current season of the witch with a double A-Side single which was just released this Halloween.
The first track of the pair, “Who’s Out There” is a tribute to classic Sci-Fi B-Movies that “delves into the possibilities of extraterrestrial life as gleaned from the results of planetary probes, interstellar discoveries, and findings about the nature of life itself.”
Here is more as described in its synopsis:
“The Nestene Consciousness has begun its first attempt to invade Earth using deadly window shop dummies.
Scientists theorize that the reanimations are occurring due to radiation from a space probe that exploded in Earth’s atmosphere on the way back from Venus.
Only Duane and Barbra can stop the attack!”
Watch the video for “Who’s Out There?” below:
The second track on the double single, “The Ghosting Effect” is about the persecution and escapism of witches. The band give a forward to a story behind the song, with the statement:
“Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the common belief among educated sectors of the European populace was that there had never been any genuine cult of witches and that all those persecuted and executed as such had been innocent of any crime.”
And here is a fable that accompanies the track:
“As the witches began dwindling due to the growth in fear, one witch lived alone in Goathland as the only witch in the village. Anne Pierson was accused of having an ‘evil eye’, that could cast spells with just once glance. Children, as well as adults, would scream when they saw her coming.
She lived deep in woodland inside a cottage where she made spells and curses. One night a squire approached her home and knocked on her door, begging that she give him a cure for his daughter’s ‘love’. She had fallen in love with a local farmer which was not what he wanted as he had already got a much more suitable husband in mind for her, one with money. Excited to put one of her wicked tricks to use she handed the squire a vial with yellow liquid in it, instructing him to pour it into his daughter’s food.
The next night the squire came back rather angry, but Anne wouldn’t let him in, he cried that his daughter was now paralyzed from the waist down and still very much in love with the poor farm boy, he begged for a cure but the evil witch refused and just cackled as the squire cried.
The farmer, hearing about his lover, went to a local wise man who knew exactly what to do, the farmer needed to get the blood of the witch, mix it with holy water and rub his lover’s feet with the mixture. The quick-thinking farm boy had remembered that Anne would sometimes disguise herself as a hare to get about unnoticed during the night, so he set up shop outside her home and waited with a shotgun. When she eventually emerged in her new form he shot and got the blood for his love, running straight to her home and rubbing her feet with them – she was cured instantly and they eloped together.”
On the song’s title, West Wickams adds that:
“For many people, ghosting can result in feelings of being disrespected, used, and disposable.”
Listen to “The Ghosting Effect” below:
West Wickhams are Jon Othello and Elle Flores, originally from Tresco on the Isles of Scilly. Tresco is famously the island of lost souls and is home to subtropical plants and shipwrecked figureheads. The two recently relocated to Richmond, Surrey, where they say—the creatures rule.
Find both singles on the West Wickhams official Bandcamp page here.
