DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ - Witchkraft Review

MOTIVATIONAL POSTERS COMING TO LIFE

It was love at first sight. Well, actually, second. For there's no denying DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ's facade is monumentally deceiving, what with her untenable obsession of Sabrina The Teenage Witch that, ultimately, plays no part in the myriad of towering Dance tracks beyond the rose-tinted 90's aesthetic. Albums, singles, even DJ mixes, bear visual iconography from the show - and only from the show - in various formats; cartoon, crude JPG's, deep fried, etc. It's all a ploy, a ruse, a meme culture stratagem to arouse curiosity. Then bam! Five albums, 94 songs, nine hours and 45 minutes of irresistible House, all in the span of three years. DJ Sabrina's allure is enthralling, her passion for achieving euphoria exhilarating. Though, at times, her boundless ambition proves too exorbitant to overcome (see: Makin' Magick's taxing middle section), when those sanguine vocal samples synthesize with House music's unremitting percussion and Sabrina's knack for enthusiastic idealism, nothing can stop her.

So why choose Witchkraft to review, when Makin' Magick and Charmed herald all the praise? Asked and answered, for avoiding the bisecting works of DJ Sabrina's pentalogy is, undoubtedly, a disservice unto oneself. Especially when the quality permeates throughout, with Witchkraft's manageable baker's dozen eschewing decadence in favor of consonance. Unlike Makin' Magick, the worst DJ Sabrina has to offer here - 'Help Me!,' 'I'm A Fool,' 'Grim Fandango!' - moderate their expected lifespans without overindulging. In other words, she knows exactly what songs deserve to unfurl into the double-digits, as the twelve-minute 'I Do Believe In You' and the ten-minute 'Victory' just so happen to be Witchkraft's best. Why? It's that abiding passion, that desire to uplift, that flowering transcendence. While I've enjoyed my fair share of House music, there's no denying the genre's major setback is its halfhearted emphasis on repetition. Protracted lengths are rarely necessary, as loops buy DJ's time to invoke trance-like states without actually earning it. Not DJ Sabrina, for on these efforts - and other standouts like 'Goodbye' and 'Goodnight' - the first minute pales in comparison to the last. A metamorphosis occurs, through continually-engrossing patterns, delicately-placed samples, and undulating sections of glee both euphoric and viscerous. It's not a DJ Sabrina epic if you don't emerge a changed man, for the better.

Don't be misconstrued, there are efforts here that rely on House music's desire to reprise reverie ad nauseam. Unlike the aforementioned works, which required countless hours behind a computer, success here isn't granted. And it relies entirely on sample usage, for DJ Sabrina's percussion never wavers. Though it's still enjoyable, Witchkraft's weakest effort is 'Life In California,' an eight-minute night-drive trek that drains with the titular spoken word sample permeating in as monotone a way as the girl's own vocal fry. Progression is minimal and perhaps intended, if DJ Sabrina was making a commentary on the line "it's sunny everyday," by besetting herself in routine. On the flip side, opener 'Joy' is an unbridled triumph. It's three parties layered over one another, veering awfully close to Carl Stone's method of Plunderphonics maximalism. Your brain melts trying to keep up with the cursory loops, only being offered modest recesses before House's exacting drums return. But damn if lines like "on a moonlit night" or "like a ship on the ocean" won't infest your downtime for weeks to come. In fact, much of Witchkraft - and DJ Sabrina's entire discography - aspires to achieve such permanence. And though one can criticize that ear-worm for not soon leaving your side, if it leads to rhapsodic bliss, can we really blame it?.