Demdike Stare

Had the pleasure of spending some time chatting with Miles and Sean from Demdike Stare last night when they played at the Empty Bottle hosted WIRE: Adventurers in Modern Music Festival. Got some great insight into their process for music making, life in England, what the new album may (or may not) sound like, and the serious record digger's hunger for that one album no one has heard in 30 years. 

Oddly, their sound, which is always visionary and forward thinking, is completely dependent on the past for source material and inspiration (everything from ultra-obscure sound library records from France and Italy to a far-out 60's oud and modular synth duo from Turkey). To me, this is what makes their music so interesting amidst the vast plain of emerging electronic musicians, this reverence for the past. It's the new face of folk music. Compositions of crackling voodoo trance rhythms, earthy primal bass thuds and passages of adder-like tape hiss, all seem to be passed down and utilized in the folk tradition. They handle their found sounds with the veneration Cecil Sharp or Alan Lomax would have given one of their rural singers, or perhaps more aptly, considering their influences, the way a witch might apply the incantations in a magical Grimoire.

The hair-raising and erotic occult horror imagery spliced together in their live video projection is a sort of mask the duo wears as an homage to the witchy ritual nature of their music and aesthetic, but underneath the oh-so-alluring darkness, I was happy to find two very friendly fellows who were just excited to be traveling the world and hexing concert goers with their hoodoo rhythms.

If you haven't heard them, check out their music here.    

Thanks to seijinlee for posting the videos