№ 143 - Demdike Stare

Their output is a multi-sensory experience that has evolved from shadowy library soundscapes into a pulsing, dystopian electronic presence. Their early releases - “Symbiosis” (2009), “Forest of Evil” (2010), “Liberation Through Hearing” (2010), and “Voices of Dust” (2010) - forged a signature aesthetic built on dense collages of foggy drones, warped field recordings, and fragments of forgotten soundtracks.

When rhythms appear, they emerge slowly and cavernously, like a heartbeat echoing in a crypt. The name “Demdike Stare” itself directly references Elizabeth Southerns, better known as “Demdike,” one of the Pendle Witches of 1612 - a link that firmly roots their project in the folklore and occult history of Northern England.

With the “Elemental” EP series and the subsequent homonymous double-CD release in 2012, their music began to advance, folding in dub-driven techno from Miles Whittaker’s solo work as MLZ and Sean Canty’s deep expertise in obscure musical archives. This period saw their sound carrying four-to-the-floor beats floating beneath industrial sounds, jungle rhythms, and feverish synth lines. By the time of the albums “Wonderland” (2016) and “Passion” (2018), the duo had fully embraced frenzied rhythmic structures, industrial tones, shadowy ambient passages, and the tense, hypnotic pulse of techno paranoia that continues to define their sonic identity.

Following a series of collaborations with artists like Jon Collin, Cherrystones, and Kristen Pilon - as well as several captivating cassette experiments - Demdike Stare has recently returned with “Splinters”, a new cassette created in collaboration with EDWIN.

The release delivers 50 minutes of original material, traversing shifting tempos and styles: muted drums, vocal samples, house grooves, ambient zones, 2-step swing, fractured breaks, and techno echoes that feel both archival and futuristic.

To mark the collaboration, The EDWIN Music Channel is proud to present the entire tape as an extended mix voyage.

To explore the duo’s latest creative current - and to gain insight into the making of “Splinters” - we spoke with Demdike Stare about their process, inspirations, and what lies ahead.

Q. How do you prepare differently for a Demdike Stare live set versus a DJ set?

A. To put it simply, a DJ set lets us play other people’s music we like, whereas a live set doesn’t have that freedom. We are always testing new ideas or sketches with every show, and we think of DJ sets and Live shows as examples of sound collage. Unexpectedly playing Live shows expanded our confidence to create a collage in both formats, with more freedom than just beat-matching and creating a linear narrative.

Q. How do you feel your sound has evolved from your beginnings to your more recent material?

A. We're not sure it has, haha. The tools and contexts always change, but the approach is the same: we follow our instincts, keep moving, and try not to repeat ourselves. The core of what we do hasn’t really shifted, but maybe the confidence has increased over time, which is an evolution in some ways.

Q. What has been the main inspiration for the tape you created with EDWIN? Was there something peculiar that you wanted to express?

A. The point of the EDWIN MUSIC CHANNEL tape was to create a mix made up of 100% exclusive material, with the inspiration coming from club culture, and other extraneous research branches, with a focus on fast dynamic changes, and a dose of fun. It's probably closest to the “Drum Machines” cassette we released a few years ago. The concept was thought out first, and then we pulled from our archive, which had the added effect of inspiration to make more new music to fit that framework.

Q. What does the future hold for Demdike Stare - are there new formats, genres, or concepts you’re keen to explore?

A. There are a lot of things in the pipeline. We haven’t made the rap record yet, so that’s something we still think about a lot. We’ve always got a wish list of people we’d love to work with. More recently, it really excites us to think about making songs - working with vocals, which we’ve started to approach tentatively. The label is a huge part of us, too, and we’re constantly thinking about that side of things. So the future’s just about pushing into new areas and seeing where it takes us.

Q. Who are you listening to these days?

A.  To be honest, recently we’ve actually been selling a lot of our record collection - partly being skint, partly just time to move stuff on and let someone else enjoy it. So, we’ve been going back through loads of things we hadn’t heard in years. As predictable as it sounds, a lot of library music and musique concrète with a healthy dose of DIY. music from many areas - going through our collections also reveals music that gives repeating rewards, as the context of what you're looking for changes over time, and some records are the gift that keeps giving!

Q. Can you name us three upcoming producers that you feel need more attention?

A.  They’re not exactly up-and-coming, but artists who are just sick and deserve way more attention are Minnesota from The Money Boss Players, G.H., and Tom Boogizm.

Q. What's one club or party that had a major impact on you as an artist?

A. Not many to be honest -  we never really went out that much, haha. But a few moments really stuck: hearing Andy Votel play Ultimate Spinach at the Hacienda and Marcus Kaye dropping Nasty Habits’ Shadow Boxing at Club Expo in Burnley. More than the nights themselves, it was hearing those records on a proper club sound system - actually hearing things in environments where your life was on the line, haha. It wasn’t about some pre-packaged idea of an ‘experimental night’ - it was just real records in raw settings, and that made them hit so much harder. 

We remember hearing stories of Andy Madhatter playing Public Enemy to a bunch of normy people on Deansgate, the big commercial drinking area in Manchester - that was just as impactful in its own way. Or Mark Turner dropping Basic Channel into Kraftwerk in the back room of the legendary techno club The Orbit outside Leeds in the early 90's - that kind of curveball is what makes it memorable, but also steps outside of the predictable route of playing to a crowd. And that really feeds directly into our philosophy for playing live. We always feel words like ‘experimental’ or ‘confrontational’ are a bit contrived - the second you start thinking, okay, we’re going to do something experimental now, it stops being that. Same with confrontation - if it’s planned, it loses its edge.

For us, the real thing comes from risk, from putting something unexpected into a room that wasn’t built for it and seeing how it lands. That’s why hearing stories of Public Enemy being played on Deansgate, or Ultimate Spinach in the Hacienda, or Basic Channel dubs in a banging techno club felt so powerful - it wasn’t dressed up as an ‘experimental’ night, it was just music colliding with context in a way that made it dangerous, yet forced you to accept music from another era in a modern context.  That’s the difference between pre-packaged weirdness and true unpredictability. That’s exactly the kind of risk and energy we want to bring into our own sets. Honestly speaking, this is still a work in progress for us - we’re not there yet by any means, but we’re thinking about it a lot. And it’s not an easy feat, but that’s the challenge that keeps us going.

Q. What's one social or political cause you want the world to pay more attention to?

A.  We can’t answer just one. Things like housing, education, the environment, and protecting independent culture - people, shops, scenes, and spaces. That’s where everything comes from, and without them, none of us would be here talking today. Less chat and more action: stick your neck out, try to make things affordable, do stuff for free if you can, and just be cool with everyone. Our generation grew up surrounded by that attitude of, ‘this person doesn’t know what they’re talking about’ or, ‘what!!! You haven’t heard this?’ Which makes it one-upmanship, and competitive, not purely enthusiastic. In the end, the hardest thing to do is also the simplest: just be nice. We can’t do this on our own - there needs to be a community for sustainability. Artists thinking about the shops, shops thinking about the artists, and shops should think about the other shops.

Q. Is there a legacy you want to leave behind as a duo? If so, which one?

A.  We’ve been very lucky to know or be inspired by truly original humans like Shlom Sviri, Cherrystones, Andy Votel, Autechre, Mark Ernestus, Madteo, Gwen Jamois - people who were radical and completely committed to what they believe in. If there’s any legacy we’d like to leave, it’s maybe just that: to sound like yourself, which for us is a lifelong journey to attain that goal.