Demdike Stare

MLZ + Finders Keepers + witchy witchy + Mika Vainio + Turkish/Indian/Iranian/African/West Indian film soundtrack + hauntology + Dubplates & Mastering = ?

http://static.boomkat.com/images/254067/333.jpg

From FACT:

Manchester's always impressive Modern Love label is taking a leap into the occult with the release of Symbiosis, the debut album by Demdike Stare.

Demdike Stare is the witchy alter ego of Sean Canty and Miles 'MLZ' Whittaker. Canty is one of the rainy city's best-known record collectors, obsessed with "everything from obscure Nordic Doom to Antolyan funk", and works behind-the-scenes at Andy Votel's Finders Keepers, while Miles is a Modern Love stalwart, having released several records on the label both solo as MLZ and as one half of Pendle Coven.

Miles' Pendle Coven project was named after Pendle Hill in north-east Lancashire, an area beloved of ghost-hunters and famed for its witch trials of 1612, when ten suspected witches were executed. Demdike Stare take their name from the most famous of the ten - Elizabeth Southern, better known as Demdike.

Symbiosis finds Whittaker and Canty stalking similar sonic terrain to Pendle Coven, somewhere between drone and dub-techno, natural and industrial, arcane and futuristic. The recordings absorb the duo's shared interest in Iranian, Turkish and West Indian library records - listening to the Middle Eastern textures on 'Tripped Dervish' and 'Haxan Dub' it's hard not to think of Shackleton, while 'Regressor', 'Extwistle Hall' and 'Nothing But The Night' are firmly in the hauntological tradition of Ghost Box and Mordant Music. Also strongly evident is Demdike Stare's interest in the spatial quality of sound, and it's no surprise that they give props to Mika Vainio in the press release accompanying the album.

Symbiosis will be released on September 21 as a CD and split across two 12"s, each mastered at D+M Berlin and limited to 300 copies. The cover art is by Andy Votel.

this is so dope

it didn't really add up for me. or maybe i just heard other slightly similar things this year that impressed me a lot more than this. so it suffered by comparison.

but i should probably listen again cuz i only played it once.

i'm curious, what did you hear that you thought was similar?

other sample-based stuff. mood music, basically. maybe even that nurse with wound thing i got this year. (surveillance lounge). but especially the Kreng album on the miasmah label. that album kinda blew me away. and other stuff too that i will look up when i'm at work tomorrow. and even the necro deathmort album, to me, had more compelling samples and beats. and doom! i wish more people could hear that album. one of my faves of the year. but mostly these things felt like a whole piece of work. the demdike stuff just sounded pieced together to me. from a cool record collection. which is cool. and, again, i need to listen to it again.

that's funny you say that because me and a friend got super stonedidated last night and listened to demdike stare and then NWW right after

will look into kreng for sure

"haxan" slays

very interesting review of their two new vinyl-only albums in this month's Wire. Can't wait to hear them!

http://www.factmag.com/2010/05/21/fact-mix-151-demdike-stare/

two new EPs are freaking dope

off the new one it sounds like "eurydice" samples the first track off porter ricks' "biokinetics" album and "mathilda's dream" samples the last track off monolake's "hongkong" album

yes, really enjoying these! too bad the first one is already out of print. there were a couple of copies at amoeba sf, though, the last time I checked

these guys are really killer

"osmosis" is incredible!

new podcast : http://soundcloud.com/unsound/up-13-demdike-stares-unsounded-podcast

brutal

Is it just me or is this stuff of the brit-equivalent of illbient? I like it, but a lot of this sounds like it could be at home on Crooklyn Dub Consortium Vol whatever (a series I really like, but I don't exactly hear getting rep'd left and right.)

i disagree with two things

1) illbient as unexamined slur

2) illbient as monolithic style

3) demdike stare as illbient anyway

Fantastic.

you say illbient
i say hauntology
let's call the whole thing off

the only thing wrong with illbient is "illbient"

true that

Is it just me or is this stuff of the brit-equivalent of illbient? I like it, but a lot of this sounds like it could be at home on Crooklyn Dub Consortium Vol whatever (a series I really like, but I don't exactly hear getting rep'd left and right.)

I was just talking about this with a friend. Over the last couple years I've heard a bunch of stuff in the dubstep/hyperdub realm that totally reminds me of the Crooklyn Dub Consortium/Wordsound nexus, especially those Spectre records. Even some of this, uh, "witch house" stuff sounds vaguely like stuff off the Subterranean Hitz compilations.

Thought we should start a thread for these dudes specifically, as the deserved ILX0R praise for this band has thus far been relegated to the insufferable, excruciatingly unreadable Salem thread.

I really dig Symbiosis but I like the Forest of Evil 12" even more. Ghost Box meets Porter Ricks - what's not to love??

I'm a little confused about the discography - I guess there were two 12"s released this year? And one is out of print? Or something? What else do I need to hear?

Discuss! And anyone who uses the terms 'witch house' or 'rape gaze' will be shot on sight.

haha, i kind of like these guys being the alternative to rapewitch

Liberation Through Hearing is the second EP.

theyre both out of print iirc

if you like the idea of ghost box meets porter ricks you'll love the new 12", liberating through hearing, as it literally samples porter ricks and monolake's earliest CR recordings

whoops liberation through hearing

i keep wanting to do a breakdown of how this is different from illbient

1) "illbient" = marketing scheme for loosely affiliated group of artists. demdike stare is not really clearly affiliated with the hauntology crew, at least not in the way that say, mordant music and ghost box are.

2) illbient artists were largely not successful outside of illbient. these guys are successful in straightforward dance (as MLZ) and also the reissue game (as finders keepers). illbient more of a spoiler scene, like dubstep, mainly just dudes who were not successful at making hip hop or trip hop.

3) illbient didn't really combine anything novel - nobody's really hit on the combination of "ghost box meets porter ricks" yet, but there isn't a whole lot of room between a lot of illbient and a lot of trip hop other than "oh hey isn't this spooky sounding", whereas there's musical techniques in demdike stare that you wouldn't hear on anybody else's records right now.

not surprisingly, the one illbient artist almost always worth fucking with is 4E, who also recorded other music as khan / can oral / khan + walker / bizz OD, etc etc

Not surprisingly you have no idea what you are talking about.

you're seriously understating the experimental, exploratory, artmusic fringes of illbient, moonship. in combining musique concrete and abstract sound with hip hop, in delivering a hip hop that could be rhythmically fractured, and could play meta games with philosophy and art theory, i think illbient did combine familiar things in distinctly novel ways.

nor am i convinced by the idea that there are musical techniques on display in demdike that are unusual in a way that outstrips what you were hearing on on early records by spooky, et al.

anyway, love the two EPs demdike stare have released this year, and last years CD was ace, too. bummed that i didn't snag those first two EPs when i had a chance, though.

"forest of evil (dawn)" ffs

not surprisingly, my nuts are once again on your mom's chin

good one

not surprising, you continue to demonstrate that in addition to knowing jack shit about the subject at hand you also have the social skills of a teenage boy

This is the Salem thread all over again.

ILM sucks.

illbient more of a spoiler scene, like dubstep, mainly just dudes who were not successful at making hip hop or trip hop.

so dubstep producers are dudes who were not successful at...techno?

lol, is this what these threads are usually like?

Is moonship already lobbying to get me banned from the thread?

haha no, I was reading this because of the positive mentions of Demdike Stare on the Salem thread and now I see what deej was complaining about (although really I can think of about a bazillion different rhetorical styles that are better to emulate than this)

oh please, when have i ever lobbied to get you kicked off a thread lobbed my man juice down your mom's throat?

^^^ things I don't expect to read when I open a Demdike Stare thread.

When did you turn into a budget Dane Cook???

you're seriously understating the experimental, exploratory, artmusic fringes of illbient, moonship. in combining musique concrete and abstract sound with hip hop, in delivering a hip hop that could be rhythmically fractured, and could play meta games with philosophy and art theory, i think illbient did combine familiar things in distinctly novel ways.

Contenderizer, you're not... seriously... making this argument are you??

insert joke about your budget mom here

xp: I really want to know what "rhythmically fractured" means because I kind of don't see anything in that description that couldn't be covered by, well, regular old hip-hop.

So now I'm assuming that what illbient "did" was read a Divine Styler press release.

haha exactly

Contenderizer, you're not... seriously... making this argument are you??

well, yeah. but i'm not claiming to be any kind of expert and am perfectly willing to be set straight. sure, you can point to something like spiral walls containing autumns of light as a precedent, but that album was and still is a massive outlier. there's almost nothing in the world like it. it didn't proceed from anything going on in hip hop at the time, or kick off any significant mainstream following.

when i say rhythmically fractured, i mean aggressively arythmic, broken. shit you can't dance or even nod to. and i think illbient's (perhaps forced) relationship to academic art theory & music was novel in american hip hop. though, again, i'm perfectly happy to be schooled...

See also: Uncle Acid

Seriously; in that instance it's the secondary market that's raking in all of the cash some people are stupid enough to pay... So both the artists and the averagely financially endowed (or, perhaps averagely mentally stable w/r/t/ spending) consumers lose out!

Very much otm.

I'm just going to hold off for the 3xcd reissue of this Demdlike Stare. Not as pretty to look at, but good enough.

oh ho but didnt you hear - this one is going to have different versions on the cd

gree hee hee

oh well

also big ups to experimedia.net for offering first dibs on #3 & #4 on those who ordered the gatefold

I purposefully ended up not buying the box because I was afraid of that happening. I like my vinyl, but I just cannot be that obsessive all the time about being on top of new releases. This was a dick move on their part, I think.

manufactured scarcity is a great move for building interest, but a lousy one for maintaining it

Going to have all four of the vinyl releases fairly shortly. Look forward to staring at them and feeling all cultish shortly.

I want to like this band so much and it just never sticks :(

It's funny, I seldom can listen to any particular full release and stay interested but if one track pops up while shuffling, or I actually listen to one side of a record, it hits me.

Yeah, my best experiences with this band have been when I've kinda been blindsided by a track that pops up on shuffle.

It's kind of a "two guys chopping up bits of other records" thing for the most part, anyway.

This Slant Azymuth record (Demdike dudes + Andy Votel) is pretty outstanding upon first listen. It's a bit less pieced-together feeling than the Demdike stuff, a bit more rhythmically vital, less drifty, more harmonically diverse, more composed-feeling. Definitely recommended to people who like Demdike... I bought my copy at Other Music in NYC yesterday; they probably printed like 150 copies, knowing their M.O.

+1 on the frustration with this band - some interesting stuff here and there but not sure when would be the right time/context to listen to them

Zero frustration with this band, just lots of love and frequent plays. I listen to "Liberation through hearing" about 10x more than any other release gho

i'm with owen p on "liberation through hearing" as the high point ... best time/context would be on a cold spooky night, when you're in the house by yourself and in the mood to freak yourself out.

if you don't appreciate freaking yourself out on cold spooky nights this is not the band for you!

yeah liberation thru hearing is definitely my favorite

THE STARS ARE MOVING MAAAN

if you don't appreciate freaking yourself out on cold spooky nights this is not the band for you!

this might be otm - i guess i used to be up for cold spooky nights til I moved in with my s.o. and became old and broing :-/

I definitely prefer this stuff on speakers rather than in headphones. I've listened to it at high volumes in the dark, but also at lower volumes while I'm working (I work quite often from home)--seems to work both ways pretty well for me. The musique concrete-ness of it still sounds cool even if your not fully immersing yourself in the EVIL vibes.

I don't know if most of their stuff codes as evil, just kind of dark and ambiguously spooky.

I was listening to one of the Regis retrospective discs this morning, though, and I think it started with a Jim Jones sample!

That Amazon review up the thread for Tryptych is still one of my favorite things written about them.

The test pressing 12"s from this year are pretty great imo.

jesus they are

i don't usually walk with the headphones in but the other week i was at a loose end and decided to take the train to burnley. went the whole hog and read aickman on the way. walked up to the moors from burnley train station with a mixed up playlist of these, passing the actual ruins of EXTWISTLE HALL. that was good.

scariest part was walking through burnley with an ipad right guys.

Last time I was in Burnley I parked opposite this slice of realness http://goo.gl/maps/bd1rH

The Eulogy/Dysology split on #003 really is something.

anyone catch them in LA last night?

The test pressing 12"s from this year are pretty great imo.

Totally agree. Just came across the full series of these 12" and they are amazing.

#4 just arrived and it is just as great as 1-3.

I only realised the other day that I've been listening to Eulogy at the wrong speed for months. It's their fault ffs.

would love to see a digital compilation of the testpressings

I think that was the most boring Wire cover feature I've ever read.

Been digesting a load of Demdike mixes lately. Some superbly diverse selections all cohesively mixed. Would single out the Osmosis, FACT and xlr8r sessions in particular.

http://somuchnoisetobeheard.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/demdike-stare-collected-mixes-podcasts.html?m=1

the empirical research tape is really nice

I keep trying to shazam tracks off it, lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcVjeyDPvuo

No thoughts on Wonderland here?

I prefer droney Demdike like Liberation EP, kind of disliked the Testpressing series when it was coming out but think this album is great on first couple listens

I like as always how their production m.o. is "a good idea presented simply"

Yeah I really like it. I was initially disappointed to read they'd moved away from the droney side of things but this LP is great.

picked up the 3cd edition today, so have a lot of soak up,
but 'elogy' from the testpressings is fantastic.
i much prefer this to the drone stuff to be honest.

the 3cd edition is the one to get, fantastic to have the testpressings collected. "eulogy" is great, yes. each time after i play "dyslogy" in my car i feel i have to secure all nuts and bolts

yeah, proper double whammy those two, love them.

cant wait to get this on the home stereo over the weekend.

blimey. "past majesty" is borderline earl brutus/pre new

proper stereo listening : does not disappoint.

Revisiting the testpressings, "Fail" is absolutely immense.

disc 3 - track 1 ?
that got listed as 'Fall' when I ripped the cd.
or, is this a different track ?

Should be Fail, I think:

https://www.discogs.com/Demdike-Stare-Testpressing-004/release/5183044

https://www.discogs.com/Demdike-Stare-Wonderland/release/9435052

brilliant, it is the same track.
so, to answer your point : yup, it sounds fantastic.

Can't wait to see them here in a couple of weeks. A chance I never thought I'd get!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY4k4d9iRVk

enjoying myself