The Evolution Of Crunk Witch’s Electro Nerdcore Musicality

Maine electro-nerdcore duo Crunk Witch, which performs at Cafe Nine in New Haven on Wednesday, Sept. 9, deals in synthesized organicism.

Husband and wife Brandon Miles and Hannah Colleen write songs on instruments (guitars, keyboards), then translate them to the digital space using Buzz, a dinosaur program that stopped being updated about 2003 (the original programmer lost the source code).

Rock, punk, dubstep, even black metal (on early releases) are in play; lyrics wrestle with typical life and relationship stuff, filtered through strange, mythological, Crunk Witch landscapes, like the desperate ramblings of a video-game protagonist.

Around 2008, Miles wrote and recorded an electro-pop solo album called “Kiss the Star,” and also played in nerdcore-metal hip-hop outfit Ghetto Craft.

“We just did power-metal-crunk about wizards and orcs and stuff,” Miles says. Crunk Witch, with Colleen on board, split the difference.

“It was really goofy and fun but with more serious musicality, something we’d actually want to put out into the world.”

Miles and Colleen have since released three albums: “The Legends of Manicorn” (2010), “Faith in the Thief” (2012) and “Heartbeats in Hyperspace” (2014). All three albums were recorded at home.

Maine artist Ryan Sully supplies the band’s colorful, cartoonish visual language, which seems almost as integral to Crunk Witch as the music.

Using Buzz, Miles says, allows for the easy translation of ideas into the digital realm. He’s used to its quirks and nuances.

“I’ve been using it for so many years that for me, it would take so much work to get the newest Ableton or something and learn all the tricks and moves,” he says. “I know my way around on it.”

He also uses popular plug-ins like Massive. “I try to give things more of an old Atari- or Nintendo-type feel, all those things I like to keep a little more organic-sounding. It’s a mixture of just playing around in the studio and seeing what we can pull out of this archaic-sounding program.”

“Manicorn” was a collection of Miles soundscapes with lyrics that were tacked on; with “Faith,” the pair began writing songs with instruments, laying them over prerecorded beats, but the results were mixed.

“We made songs that were more dance-y and songs that were trying to be synthesized rock or metal or something,” Miles says. “We created a very confusing record, for us and for other people. We ended up not performing 80 percent of that record, just because it didn’t seem to make any sense.”

Crunk Witch found its sound with “Heartbeats,” a cohesive collection of electro-pop-punk with dance grooves and approachable melodies.

“It’s way more song-based,” Miles says. “It gives Hannah more of an opportunity to have an influence on not just the lyrics and the concepts, but also the music and the development of that.”

There’s a self-referential nature to “Start of It All,” the first track on “Heartbeats,” which finds Miles laying out the band’s seemingly innocent creation story:

It all started on MySpace

I walked over to her place

It wasn’t raining but it was cold

She looked happy to see me

She poured me a cup of tea

And I asked to kiss her

It was bold

This was the start of it all

And this is why we are

The Crunk Witch that we are

Things get complicated: screaming in the streets, bleeding mayors, portals, mystic ninjas and gang fights. The boundaries between Miles and Colleen’s lives and Crunk Witch mythology have become blurred.

“When we wrote [“Start Of It All’], we were like, ‘We can’t put that out,'” Miles says. “‘We can’t have a song where the chorus is our band name.’ So we said, ‘Let’s just go play it.’ People loved it, and we were like, ‘Maybe that is the legacy of what we do with it.'”

The song’s live reception, Miles adds, made them question their approach; Miles and Colleen are now willing to take more risks, to allow themselves to create uncomfortable music, but to put it out, anyway.

“It’s been this joke story that, at the beginning, was a sort of fake mythology-type vibe,” Miles says. “Now, most of the songs are about what we’re going through with our relationship. It’s never anything bad. Our lives are relatively drama-free. It’s just fun takes on what we’re going through. … We’re writing about what we know, and we’re trying to know ourselves.”

CRUNK WITCH performs at Cafe Nine in New Haven on Wednesday, Sept. 9, at 9 p.m., with Ceschi, Sketch The Cataclysm and Zanders opening. Tickets are $5. Information: cafenine.com.