Review: i Häxa ‘i Häxa’
This has truly felt like Schrödinger’s year, simultaneously dragging on forever in the moment yet somehow here we are with November approaching as the dark and cold start to grip the UK, and 2024 is already in its death rattle.
Something else that has come to an end is the debut full-length release from i Häxa, the mysterious and multifaceted collective comprised of singer-songwriter and visual artist Rebecca Need-Menear (Anavae) and producer Peter Miles (Architects, Dodie, Fizz).
Having split their sixteen-track debut into four distinct sections and released throughout the year as four-track EPs comprising of separate but connected movements, the project concludes with the release of the collected double album.
A groundbreaking conceptual project, the eponymous debut has woven together neo-folk, industrial and drifting ambience that has been accompanied by visual collaborations with filmmaker Daniel Broadley. It seeks to explore abstract cinema, ancient mythologies and folklore, rituals and rites, fragmented time and modern bleeding-edge technology in a dazzling, existential, discordant journey.
Part One, for all its glitched-out, sparse electronica, had a primal melancholy that seeped from the folk horror aesthetic. Released on the March solstice, it felt like the kind of sacrifice that might occur to usher in the spring if Midsommar was soundtracked by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. The growing unease and stark emotion of Need-Menear float over a tender piano that hints at darkness over clashing beats and distortion.
The second instalment, Part Two, came with Beltane and the Iron Age festival of fire. Despite the apocalyptic overtones, the fever dreams of nameless places and wraith-like spectres melted in the June heat. With a warming orchestral-like feel that raised the emotional and sensory stimulation via piano and weeping violins, only to have a distant threat start to manifest. As i Häxa tackled the building blocks of our inner psyche and continued displacement from nature in the modern world, they brought beauty and mysticism through modern technology and exploration similar to another great 2024 release in Harvestman’s Triptych.
The most recent entry, Part Three, sought to bring these disparate worlds of the physical and metaphysical together as the beautiful film score-like sweep was increasingly corrupted by harsh industrial elements and a claustrophobic sense of frustration and dread. Over breakbeats and airy moments of unsettling stillness, Need-Menear channels rituals for old gods and the modern-day deification of data as she explores what makes us human through her mesmerising vocal range that is at once haunting and horrifying.
The final part resets the emotions after the violent slamming of Part Three’s Destroy Everything. Vessel grows over a rising electronic hum, Need-Menear’s voice is a breathy and emotive sigh over the stately drift of the icy electronics. Glitches emerge and spoken word intonations fight with darker background whisperings. The looping vocals are played backwards and forwards, lending it a detached feeling that this closing chapter could take the listener anywhere.
Blue Angel explodes into life with shuffling, syncopated breakbeats that owe inspiration to the likes of Goldie and Björk. As the frenetic thrum and pulse of the vibrations intrude on your thoughts, the vocals are falsetto, floating and ethereal but clash with the garbled, urgent spoken word that adds connection back to earlier parts of the album. The track ends by slipping back into a calm exhale, a wistful lull in the intense struggle that has gone before.
The respite doesn’t last long as Infernum immediately yanks the listener out of that peaceful space with heavy clashing beats that owe more to intense drum and bass, making the segue between tracks a violent, jarring transition. The subsonic bass rattles and shudders over the choral vocal melodies, making the track sound like twisted chamber music. Under the soaring harmonies, strings emerge, their agile and expressive notes approximating the human voice as Need-Menear’s childlike intonation brings narration that reminds me of Amiee Echo from the forgotten nu metal act Human Waste Project. After the high drama of the piece, i Häxa fade once more into a symphonic calm and Vangelis-like sci-fi edge.
The closing track, Circle, is built around a tender, warm piano and shimmering string section that is neo-classical and breathtakingly beautiful. The melancholy remains but there is a sense of hope over the organic-sounding number that returns to the lament of Part One’s opening track Underworld. The final entry of the project brings everything full circle with a tentative warmth that manages to be more striking and dramatic than the violence and darkness that has gone before.
With their complex future noir debut, i Häxa have created something truly special, and teasing it out over the entire year has meant it has, time and again, pulled your focus deliberately as a comment on the disposable, instant gratification of the modern world. The stunning use of the intertwining aural, visual and lyrical themes has demanded the project be treated with a reverence that simply releasing in one hit, would have robbed the music of its power.
Now available in two formats: a Double LP in a gatefold sleeve and a deluxe box set housing all four parts as individual EPs with screen prints on each B-side plus a bonus LP entitled Fishnets/Oceans featuring three vinyl-exclusive tracks along with a 36-page photobook documenting the making of Part One’s mesmerising short film. The legacy of the album transcends a musical experience and makes it one of, if not the, most unique release of 2024.
This release begs to be performed in its entirety in an intimate setting and is exactly the kind of thing that would make a stunning addition to the likes of Roadburn, such is the boundary-pushing nature of the sonic and visual effort that has been poured into it.
Label: Pelagic Records
Band Links: Facebook | Bandcamp | Spotify | Instagram
Scribed by: Mark Hunt-Bryden
