Review: i Häxa – Part One & Part Two

Style: Art rock, trip-hop, alternative folk, dark folk, dark ambient, alternative rock (Clean vocals)
Recommended for fans of: Chelsea Wolfe, Radiohead, Massive Attack, Portishead, Björk, Emma Ruth Rundle, Anna von Hausswolff. And some comparisons more specific to this blog: Steven Wilson’s arty/electronic works, Lunatic Soul, later Ulver, The Black Queen, iamthemorning
Country: UK
Release date: February 16th 2024 (Part One); May 17th 2024 (Part Two)

If I have a specific love outside of progressive metal, it’s arty, rocky, electronica-tinged, trip-hoppy… stuff. I don’t know what to call it exactly, it’s more a vibe than a genre, but if you look at the bands in the “recommended” section above then you’ll know the ballpark I’m in; the not-so-mainstream music that forefronts complex instrumentation, emotional sincerity and strange sonic textures. There’s been some good examples as of late, from the new Beth Gibbons and St Vincent albums to Steven Wilson’s foray into electro-prog last year, but what I didn’t expect was that I’d find one of the best groups in this realm repped by Pelagic Records, the label founded by Robin Staps of progressive metal band The Ocean, better known for doom, sludge and post-metal¹.

i Häxa is comprised of vocalist and visual artist Rebecca Need-Menear (one half of alternative rock group Anavae), and instrumentalist and producer Peter Miles (producer for We Are The Ocean and Architects, and co-producer on Tesseract’s latest album), and these two EPs Part One and Part Two form the first half of their audacious audiovisual project. Part One (From the Earth) has been released with an accompanying short film while Part Two (Fire) comes with a live studio performance. A giddy concoction of trip-hop, art pop, folk, and dark ambient flavours form the bulk of this genre-defying brew which relies on exquisite production, hauntingly rich vocals, and an intense dichotomy of tension and release, softness and abrasiveness. Both EPs run to just over fifteen minutes and each feature four tracks that flow together like one long suite. 

Need-Menear’s honeyed voice oozes threat and vulnerability in equal measure, and she modulates exquisitely: on “The Well” (Part Two) she starts out husky, sinuous, and just a little caustic, ultimately crescendoing with a belting, cathartic vocal solo over chaotic strings and ambient layers straight out of Radiohead’s most raucous work—the track also gambles on gradually slowing the feel during the climax, the drums reducing from half time to quarter, etc, while the energy of the vocals and strings increases, which pays off beautifully. A handful of songs—”Inferno” (Part One), “We Three”, and “Fog of War” (both Part Two) feature prominent spoken word pieces, also by Need-Menear, who narrates with a deft feel for rhythm, enunciation, and intensity. On “Inferno”, the ambient textures and pulsating drumwork slowly build to an unbearable maelstorm, trapping her voice in labyrinthine layers of sound, while “Fog of War”, which closes Part Two in hair-raising fashion, ends with some of her best apocalyptic prose: “It didn’t occur to me how helpless we are/walking, organic containers/at the mercy of circumstance/I am too afraid to cry/eyes glued to the hues of my southern hemisphere/ablaze/a borealis of flame”—your move, Yeats. All too often, spoken word in music is ill-conceived and lacklustre, but for i Häxa it’s a vital and chilling component within the overall composition.  

Miles, meanwhile, is the perfect instrumental partner, combining folk-tinged guitar and elegant piano with intense layers of synths and complex trip-hop inspired drum work; an entente between analogue and digital. “Underworld” explodes into a filthy electronica beat reminiscent of Massive Attack’s “Angel” but with an even greater sense of heft and menace; the looping background vocals underlying “Sapling” sit amid gorgeous piano, and ominously percussive ticking with a 3/4 feel, all of which form the perfect bedrock for one of Need-Menear’s most emotive performances; and the two drum lines played in counterpoint on “We Three” confer an unsettling energy. The verses of “Eight Eyes”, meanwhile, unfold in 5/4 with a possible bar of 7/4 here and there², before the polyrhythmic chorus, and on “Inferno” Miles sojourns over the piano in free form, a gentle fluttering beneath growing tension. All these subtleties are nestled within an enormous wall of sound, and yet are distinct within that immense totality, demonstrating Miles’s profound intuition for balancing every sonic element.

As this is an audiovisual experience, it’s worth delving into the accompanying film pieces. Part One’s EP-length music video has fantastic production values, creative costumes, and dynamic camerawork, borrowing from the visual language of folk horror, with Dantean symbols of hell, and themes of death and rebirth. Violently contorting forest spirits paw at Need-Menear who plays the nameless protagonist, and as Miles’ synths intensify under her tortured narration during “Inferno”, we see her trapped in a claustrophobic prison of human flesh, somewhere on the Botticelli to NBC’s Hannibal spectrum. The imagery conjured here is striking: Need-Menear wreathed in red light watching herself cradled in the arms of a forest spirit, breaking free from a fabric amniotic sac, a bewebbed sapling ablaze in a clearing. If a pop artist with millions of dollars and a professional director at their disposal put out this exact film we’d be hailing it as one of the best music videos ever made.

You might think the live in studio video for Part Two would struggle to reach up to the expectations set by Part One’s feature. And while Need-Menear, Miles and company aren’t pushing the limits of cinematic performance art this time, the vibes are impeccable nonetheless, reflecting the more darkly intimate tone of these songs. With the studio draped in bloodred velveteen and a deer skull chandelier looming menacingly overhead, the performance becomes increasingly claustrophobic. By the time spoken word piece “Fog of War” comes to close proceedings, the camera’s flitting around in panicked circles like a trapped moth, tortured screams emanate amid the performers wringing pandemonium from their instruments (this performance goes a little harder than the EP version), and Need-Menear’s knelt down amidst it all intoning dread premonitions from some infernal tome—you’ll find few studio performances that go harder. Both of these visual components add new dimensionality to the music, and prove rewarding and worthwhile companion pieces, little artworks in their own right.

With a Part Three and Part Four of this solstice-guided work set for release by November³, I’m very excited to complete this journey given the excellence of the first two instalments. Suffice to say, that i Häxa is an extraordinarily bold and audacious project of musical and visual artistry, an addictive, arresting and cathartic listen that I’ve had on repeat since discovering it. Everyone involved, both the main duo, the guest musicians, and all those involved in bringing the visuals to life, should be incredibly proud of themselves—kudos to Pelagic Records, too, who continue to impress with their open-minded signings. Existential, intimate, pagan, and utterly sublime, i Häxa looks set to be one of 2024’s strangest and most rewarding musical experiences..

Recommended tracks: Underworld, Sapling; Eight Eyes, The Well (but really I suggest you sit down and take half an hour to watch both video pieces in full)
You may also like: Ophelia Sullivan, Courtney Swain, Dreadnought, Suldusk, Marjana Semkina, White Moth Black Butterfly, Meer, Exploring Birdsong
Final verdict: 9/10

1.  The Ocean’s last album, Holocene, introduced electronica influences to their sound, and Pelagic rep a few other artists who play with trip-hop, drone and electronica, such as Playgrounded, BRUIT≤, and SHRVL, but i Häxa nevertheless rank among their most out-there signings. 
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2.  Counting above four is hard so I might have this wrong. Suffice to say, there’s weird time signatures happening.
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3.  Rest assured I’ll be reviewing those two EPs after they’ve both come out, and to assess the project in its entirety. 
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Related links: Bandcamp | Spotify | YouTube | Facebook | Instagram

Label: Pelagic Records – Bandcamp | Facebook | Official Website

i Häxa is:
– Rebecca Need-Menear (vocals)
– Peter Miles (instruments, production and mixing)