Demdike Stare

In 1612, Elizabeth Southerns, alias Mother Demdike, was sentenced to death in Pendle Forest in Lancashire, north-west England, in one of the most notorious British witch trials – albeit, before seeing the gallows, she died of old age in her cell. And from such a place emanates the music of the Manchester-based duo Demdike Stare: unrelenting pleas lament behind thick walls, stifled by clattering, sluggish rhythms and an occasional muffled drum thump. Every so often, a light chime of lute chords wavers above a cloud of magnetic bass and dub-like reverb.