Get To Know... Witch Post • Neu • DIY Magazine

Hello and welcome back to DIY’s introducing feature, Get To Know… which aims to get you a little bit closer to the buzziest acts that have been catching our eye as of late, and working out what makes them tick.

Up next, we meet Witch Post - the geographically unlikely yet undeniably alchemic pairing of Alaska Reid and Dylan Fraser, who, despite being based over 4000 miles apart, have emerged as one of 2025’s most talked about new names. And, if their recently released debut EP ‘Beast’ is anything to go by, this early hype is entirely justified. Between scuzzy indie rock (‘The Wolf’, ‘Dreaming’), ’90s-flecked grunge (‘Rust’) and yearning balladry (‘Spell’), their inaugural six-track project invokes a sense of potent, almost paganistic wonder at every turn; no wonder they can count Caroline Polachek among their fans (yes, really).

To celebrate the arrival of ‘Beast’, we catch up with Alaska and Dylan to delve a bit further into their world of chance meetings and magical inspirations.

Describe your music to us in non-musical terms.
Alaska: We’re folk art - like a strange, clay rabbit you find at a thrift store. We’re a rainy landscape from a train and we’re a sunset reflecting off a dirty truck windshield. We’re a flyer on a telephone pole that catches your eye. We’re a song you hear at the grocery store waiting at the checkout. We’re wild blackberries and we’re a really great cheeseburger.

You originally hail from opposite sides of the Atlantic - Alaska from Montana, Dylan from Scotland. Is there much creative common ground between your upbringings? For each of you, what was it about the other that first drew you to make music with them?
Dylan: I think that culturally, America and Scotland are quite different, so we’ve definitely grown up with different perspectives and different music which I think you can hear in our songs. I think we relate on the level that we both come from small towns and grew up playing open mics in local bars. Nothing keeps you humble like playing to one person in a local dive bar.

As for what drew me to Alaska’s music, it was a train ride from Edinburgh to Kings Cross that let me stumble upon her album ‘Big Bunny’. I was really taken aback on my first listen, and was particularly drawn to her voice. It’s an album I kept returning to, really getting into the lyrics and stories Alaska was sharing.

Alaska: Dylan’s a rock star. His voice is a portal. I think when stuff comes from the stars, common ground goes out the window. That’s what it felt like when we met. We didn’t really discuss what had informed our brains’ musical libraries. We just wanted to make something new and I think we knew we could do that together and push each other.

Talk us through a perfect day in the life of Witch Post.
Dylan: A perfect day is getting each minute closer to a pint of Guinness after all our hard work in the studio.

“Creating music is a way to practice magic.”

— Alaska Reid

Elements of magic or the otherwise otherworldly seem to be threaded throughout your debut EP, ‘Beast’. Why do you think you have such a creative affinity with these sorts of motifs, or otherwise find them artistically fascinating/inspiring?
Alaska: Art is magical, it transcends time. I think I know someone who lived in a completely different place at a completely different time because I listen to their songs or read their writing. I think places exist which don’t because they’re illustrated to me through art and my own imagination. To me writing, and specifically for us, creating music, is a way to practice magic, so it’s fun to mix that with a more literal or recognised idea of what “magic” is.

You’ve spent the first few months of the year whipping up anticipation for ‘Beast’ via word of mouth and packed live shows. How do you go about translating Witch Post’s creative vision in a live setting?
Alaska: We just try to write songs that can carry a live show without frills. We really want to grow our show and add more instruments, but at the end of the day, the show can go on with just me and Dylan and our guitars.

If you could take one album, one book, and one film to a desert island, what would you pick (and why)?
Dylan: I can never pin it down to one, but if I’m talking solely about what I’m listening to/have read recently: my album would be ‘Nobody Loves You More’ by Kim Deal, I love that album right now; my book would be Wayward by Vashti Bunyan, it’s such a good story; my film, I have no idea, because I don’t really watch films that often so I’m yet to find one that I’d want to watch over and over.

Alaska:
Album: Yo-Yo Ma, ‘J.S. Bach: The 6 Unaccompanied Cello Suites Complete’. I grew up listening to this before bed.
Book: My whole family writes in some capacity, so anything they do. Or, alternatively, the book I am currently writing because I have to finish it.
Film: Robert Altman’s Nashville. It’s a beautiful film and it centers around music. I still need to watch it a few times more to understand its complexity.

Finally, DIY is coming round for dinner - what are you making?
Dylan: Chicken noodle soup - it’s one of my specialties. I’m Scottish and we don’t like to brag, but I make my own chicken stock and I have to say it’s really good.

‘Beast’ is out now.

#AD