2014 repress. This is the first in a series of three vinyl-only albums to be released by the UK's Demdike Stare. Demdike Stare's highly-acclaimed debut album Symbiosis (LOVE 059CD) was released in late 2009 and explored Sean Canty and Miles Whittaker's interest in re-appropriated found sounds of all colors and origins. Fast adopted into the "hauntological" canon, the album evoked the noises and spirits of distant yet oddly familiar locations. The first of a vinyl trilogy set to be released through 2010, Forest Of Evil is a more unearthly affair, split into two long tracks that summon the presence of the pair's geographical, musical and spiritual ancestors. The "Dusk" side unfurls from a cacophonous piano sequence into an anguished drone that nervously builds into an audible nausea, pushing through until it finally opens up into crisp, clear percussive terrain. "Dawn" embodies a more disturbed persona, rumbling through free-jazz tape loops and thunderous drums before adopting the kind of narcotic, claustrophobic terrain often visited by Shackleton, a heaving low-end pulse and tribal colors producing dense, dark and relentless tapestries. And then, out of nowhere, a widescreen coda, edging out of total despair and darkness and into something that you could just about convince yourself, even for just a moment, reflected light and offered hope. Mastered and cut by Lupo at D&M, Berlin with artwork by Andy Votel.
