Demdike Stare epiphany, or the first symptoms of.

Prejudice wearing off

I've explained below how I can't quite accept Demdike Stare and, after researching and adding some context and history to the duo, I still found myself feeling very neutral and unimpressed by them. There was something unconvincing about a minimal techno DJ and an indiscriminate crate digger joining forces and with Andy Votel hanging around too -I don't dislike any of this gang but I instantly imagined the zany, guffawing stickers that adorned most Finders Keepers' releases "20 hot slices of raw Romanian Horror Soundtrack Funk" being bandied around during the recording of these Demdike tracks. The music was dark as fuck, no problems there, but I had no feeling for the dude being the noise. Not like Cabaret Voltaire who, despite being wholly affable and reasonable chaps, seemed to be exorcising their sinister dark side on record or P-Orridge who is disarmingly charming and thus makes his recorded presence all the more uncomfortable and shirk-worthy.

No, these guys seemed like a pair of vinyl heads digging putting their zany discoveries together under a concept which, perhaps, seemed almost too cinematic. I've listened mostly to the first two parts of their Triptych the most and was left unphased (not to mention deflated after "Caged in Stanheim") and dissatisfied. So, I persevered and have been listening heavily.

Part 3 (2?) of the Triptych, Voices of Dust, is on the money. It's a great, dense, unfurling leakage of loop abuse and slow-motion disintegration. You know that scene at the beginning of Terminator 2 with Sarah Connor experiencing the playground apocalypse? Parts of this recall my imagined DJ Skrew remix of that scene.

It isn't noisy -as in flinchingly so- just a slow grinding morass of explosions happening in carefully plotted sequence and overlapping here and there.

So, Voices of Dust I like. My wife asked me to turn it off for being 'too challenging' (a good sign) and I also find this to be the release where the personalities of the DJs recede a bit, feeling less like two mates having a chummy muck about, more like an earnest bit of malevolent art.

I'll give Eternal a spin later in the hope it's in the same vein.