Demdike Stare - Forest of Evil /LP

Demdike Stare - Forest of Evil /LP

Lancashire’s sons of occult darkness push off into the night with the first in a triptych of spellbinding vinyl-only LP’s. ‘Forest Of Evil’ is a direct elevation and expansion of the ideas expressed on the debut album, ‘Symbiosis’, literally breaking down multiple elements to run as two extended pices – one on each side, giving more scope to suck us into an abyssal vortex of inky blackness without interruption. The sides are themed as ‘Dusk’ and ‘Dawn’, entry and exit points for a trip where owt can happen in between. On the palindromic ‘Dusk’ tentative strings with one eye on Alice Coltrane imbue an astral sense of wonderment before plunging us head first into the cold water of elliptical percussion. With lungs and ears flooded we’re churned in a current of Shackleton-esque percussion at the bottom of a tarn, high in the hills before returning to the coruscating strings on the surface. With ‘Dawn’ a battery of warlocks forge a martial tattoo, like Regis sent to the dark ages to live out his fantasies with a medieval drum circle. And then, out of nowhere, an ominous veil of layered strings emerges out of nothing to sweep us away with vintage elements and ghostly traces of sound last heard on the sublime last album from the Caretaker as quivering subbass tremors threaten to open the ground beneath the turntable. Approach this when under the influence of magic potions for maximum rewards…