Photo by Britt Brown

DREAM CATCHER EARRINGS

Pocahaunted Get Allergies in the Woods

Pocahaunted make creepy music that eats away at your ears like a plague-ridden tapeworm. It’s all low-level drones and voices from beyond the pale that clunk along in a shambolic, rootsified manner that Devendra and his band of catamite followers could only dream of. They sound like some lost field recording of a bunch of Navajos subconsciously conversing with Anguta, a deity from Native American mythology, while hopped up on mescal out in the middle of a forest in Eagle Rock, California, where they come from. Spook attack!

Vice: Where is the most haunted place you have ever been?

Bethany Cosentino: My best friend in high school lived in this house, which my new age mom always suspected was haunted. Once we did this experiment where she left the house for a night with her rocking chair pushed against the wall. My mom said if the chair was in the middle of the room the next day, then we’d know a ghost moved it. Totally in the middle of the room the next day. Fucked up.

Amanda Brown: I’ve never been anywhere haunted, I’m Jewish and we don’t go anywhere or do anything that has anything to do with the supernatural.

What would you expect to see in a haunted wood that contained your greatest fears?

Amanda: I’d see Bethany wearing a Lakers jersey and dream catcher earrings. I imagine that she has been in every creepy place that there has ever been. Or I’d see my husband Britt leading a Manson-like cult of beautiful girls in white robes.

Bethany: The woods make my allergies flare up so I’d probably be hopped up on a whole bunch of Claritin or Piriton if I was there.

How frightening on a scale of one to ten would you grade your music?

Bethany: The most fucked up, haunted sound ever is reverse talking. Thinking about it right now is making me freak out. I think our music is pretty spooky and up there with that sound. It’s like our own language of sisterhood, I can just stare into Amanda’s eyes and hear our music playing.

Amanda: It’s more kind of psychedelic and woozy than straight frightening. Bethany’s voice is chamber-style dramatic and when the death metal pedal is on the mood is very heavy. We also insist on playing in 90 degree heat for optimum crazed sweatiness.

What are your favourite creepy Disney movies?

Bethany: The Little Mermaid. That is where I get all my vocal cues. I’m also into Cruella De Ville because she’s wicked bad.

Amanda: I’m more into live action stuff. The Parent Trap and Pollyanna. Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty could be Bethany’s replacement, she’s hot and cruel. I could definitely drone out with anyone from the animated Robin Hood. Those dudes are just all soul.

JIMMY JAMS
Pocahaunted have supporteed Thurston Moore and Sonic Youth and released a bunch of records on labels that you really should be familiar with by now like Not Not Fun and Ecstatic Peace! They currently have a split CDR with Robedoor out on the Blackest Rainbow label. myspace.com/pocahauntedmusic

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