I’m down with witch house, even though its not particularly witchy or housey, but Salem have always struck me as being the most unlikely of the genre’s superstars in that they’re not really that good. Their records to these ears much resemble their public persona- lazy, fucked up, and disinterested. Which is not even to mention their contributions to the mystifying trend of rape ballads. Then again, I was never one for their most prominent antecedent, DJ Screw. So, I wait in anticipation for the tipping point of this obsessive record-screwing (this decade’s substitute for the mashup), even if there have been some quality results of the drag phenomena (the 800x slower Justin Bieber track, AIDS-3D’s mixes). 

With that said, I’m as baffled as you are that it this latest Screwed version of Britney Spears’s single “Til the World Ends” is actually quite good. Even better is this video, which draws out the apocalyptic potential of the lines “keep on dancin’ ‘til the world ends” along with night vision footage of anonymous bombing activity in a desert region. Even the simple addition of SFX scream in the mix adds great leverage to the footage. Thanks to Kek-W for the tip-off on this one.

Vice just premiered Bill Callahan‘s new video for “Riding for the Feeling” off the ominously titled new alnum, Apocalypse. Earlier this month, PopMatters’ Corey Beasley praised the album: “Apocalypse is a restless record, one concerned with the difficulties of staying put. In that way, it also keeps itself at arm’s length. Callahan’s stripped away a good degree of the hooks present on Eagle, and in the process he’s made a more serious (and, sure, self-serious) album. He’s a talent prodigious enough to warrant a lateral move, and Apocalypse will find its rightful place in his 20-odd-years-long canon. It’s hard to think of an album more thoroughly transportive, even if the places it takes you won’t always be pleasant.” Callahan is also on tour at present, full details below.

Native Californian Melissa Ann Sweat now makes picturesque Savannah, Georgia her home and, it’s from these literary climes that she works on her wide-ranging artistic interests. The poet, writer and artist goes under the moniker of Lady Lazarus for her musical endeavors, which only really began early in 2008 when she started teaching herself to play music and began writing songs. Her debut release, Mantic drew accolades from Pitchfork and One Thirty BPM, while she’s been been on the road supporting the project. Lady Lazarus is currently working on material for a new album, as well as videos like the one we present you with today, “Took in My Diamond Heart”.

Princeton’s Rotwang is back, following his full-length debut Awful with an only-ten-minutes-shorter EP called Crisis.  It stays the course of its predecessor’s dystopian ambiance, although despite the panicked title, this is actually the more tuneful of the two.  The melodies are just as angular, but bolder, especially on opener “Vertigo”, which might just barely qualify as pop if not for an insistently ear-piercing mid-section synth seizure.

Florida post-hardcore sextet Underoath recently released the video for “Paper Lung”, the second single from last year’s Ø (Disambiguation. The video, directed by Jonathan Desbiens, continues the trend of beautifully dark videos from the band, whose 2006 video for “Writing on the Walls” was nominated for a Grammy.