Demdike Stare - Voices of Dust

DEMDIKE STARE - VOICES OF DUST

Modern Love

Hard-working Lancastrians Demdike Stare have taken their overcast witch-trial aesthetic through four albums in a little over a year, not counting three white label mixtapes and at least two free mixes for FACT and their label, Modern Love (any more links would be welcome in the comments). And prolific isn’t the half of it, because this is quality as well as quantity.

It’s not hard to discern a theme across all the albums and mixes so far. Creepy samples from psychedelic folk, Arabic music, early electronic experiments and Wodan-knows what else are treated to dub techno versioning and layered with ominous drones, hiss and crackle. For narrative reasons, let us infer that the samples come via one half of the DS duo - Sean Canty of the obscurity-curating Finders Keepers label. The faultless studio work would then be the responsibility of Miles Whittaker, a.k.a. MLZ and (one of) Pendle Coven.

Whoever did what, they did a lot of it. Voices Of Dust is the third release of a treble-header in 2010, and it follows Forest Of Evil and Liberation Through Hearing into similarly atmospheric and disorienting territory. There is a definite progression - the more overtly electronic material of 2009’s Symbiosis has been smudged on these albums, and the oppressive atmosphere has been ratcheted up a notch on the rack, sampled and used as source material.

Opener “Black Sun” is a Theremin broadcast from a deep pit, leading into the incredible “Hashashin Chant”, with an ultra-repetitive vocal sample seeming to swirl around the stereo image over an organic Shackleton beat, until a vertiginous drop sucks all the sound and space into a claustrophobic bass tone before repeating.

“Repository Of Light” is perhaps the most conventional dub techno cut, with a gorgeous meandering synth line over minimal percussion and what sounds like a single Farfisa chord being held for an unfeasible length of time: eleven minutes to be exact, though it doesn’t outstay its welcome. From there we’re back into terrifying (ab)normality; “Of Decay & Shadows” would be a rude wake-up if you drifted off during the lull, as thunderheads of electronic noise burst over cavernous drones.  And you won’t be sleeping again - “Rain & Shame” begins with a faintly horrifying miasma of unintelligible vocal snatches that granulates into another expert piece of tonal ambience.

“Desert Ascetic” and “Viento De Levante” are perhaps more obviously rhythmic, if not industrial (in the original sense: “the grumbling of noises that breathe and pulse with indisputable animality, the palpitation of valves, the coming and going of pistons, the howl of mechanical saws, the jolting of a tram on its rails”). Finally, “Leptonic Matter” and “A Tale Of Sand” are an excellent beatless end; the latter is particularly well-titled as it sounds like being buried alive. At the end of the cycle the cycle begun in Forest Of Evil, the tension has built to something, but release is not the Demdike Stare way. They prefer the unresolved, to leave the listener with a vague sense of dread, and the album is all the better for it.

Unfortunately, if you don’t own Voices Of Dust (or the others), it has already long sold-out of its limited vinyl pressing. But the good news is that all three of the 2010 albums are shortly to be compiled on a 3CD set called Triptych, featuring 40 minutes of new music. It couldn’t come more highly recommended.

Sam Stagg