Bristol
8 November 2024
Stage-bound Demdike Stare started the proceedings. Not really familiar with their wares, but the occultist drone they started with was giving me Coil‘s Moon’s Milk-lidded dreams as projected horses leaped and Wiccan flesh splashed the screen.
A sonically disbursing continuum the duo textually drifted, evocatively pulling you this way and that, nipping in the haunted crackle of a few 78s before wondering amorphically elsewhere. Lush chorals that hypnotically weave then pool in a song-like lilt that draws you warmly in, blending well with the colour blurs and super-8 layers on screen. Fractured and skittery beats later scattering through, to which spicy melodics nibble then sour in a host of shimmery shapes to a
Vampyr casket leering slow-mo of visual repeats finally spiralling
down a sonic plughole to the set’s close.
In direct contrast to the sombre cinematics of Demdike,
Dame Area stormed straight in there, showcasing their latest (and greatest) album. The compact off-stage set up throwing the audience to circle the tech bonfire of
diode-flashing wares the duo had assembled.
Víctor Hurtado’s labyrinth-like spread of pedals / effect boxes spilling to the table’s edge, his keyboard parallel-hugging
Silvia Costan’s keys. His floor tom next to a slab of electronic pads mirroring her contact-miced metal and synth-drum wares.
A poisoned arrow to conformity, they packed some serious clout, tightly knitted and reactive they exploded all strobe-skipped and shouty. That chest-slamming thump oxidated by a mean
DAF-like pulse. A gristlised /
SPK / crook-weathered rub that glowed white hot, cruised the fuck wherever as Silvia circled the periphery, burst through the audience all pogo-pronged, the mic’s chord arm snaking, the business end fist-gripped to her face. The language barrier inconsequential to the hammering intent that puppeteered your limbs and universally beamed your
head in capslock.
The duo’s drumming was phenomenal, pummelling a martial solidity scarred in
slurry feedback, Silvia screaming into her metal plate, poking a drumstick into its holed surface to produce retractive shrieks.
Man, the energy was insane — breathtakingly direct, leading to me totally losing it (maybe to the gritty pump of “Devoción”?), my body all salvo-daggered, head-flinging abandon as the
electronics twerked and tasered. My kinda dance music for sure, limbering onwards to the melodic maul of their previous
Toda La Mentira Sobre release before crashing out on a sonically torqued finale.
A seriously satisfying set that
totally nailed the new album’s indelible sheen. If you ever get the opportunity to see Dame Area in the flesh – go grab it, you won’t be disappointed.
-Michael Rodham-Heaps-
Stage-bound Demdike Stare started the proceedings. Not really familiar with their wares, but the occultist drone they started with was giving me Coil‘s Moon’s Milk-lidded dreams as projected horses leaped and Wiccan flesh splashed the screen.
