Demdike Stare Wonderland

A project that came to life fuelled by collectors’ obsession and a lifelong willingness to dive head- first into unknown musical wormholes, Miles Whittaker and Sean Canty have never been defined by a singular musical trajectory.
Their opening salvo of releases dabbled with the aesthetic of the occult and provided an alternate, parallax view of the Italian Library records with which they were both obsessed at the time, but as their long running mixtape series and brilliantly curated DDS label attest, their interests extend far outside the crevices of early electronic music and into dance music, dancehall, roots, jungle, techno, industrial, noise and beyond.
While 2013’s Testpressing series provided an outlet for mostly club-based productions shot from the hip, Wonderland has been constructed with a narrative in mind.
From the clipped Hardstyle of the opening Curzon, through the jaunty Dancehall mutations of Animal Style and FullEdge, Exotica/House refractions on Hardnoise, the frankly ridiculous, bassbin destroying Jungle ructions on Sourcer, or the extended tease of Overstaying, it’s probably the most enjoyable and loose-limbed hour of music in their catalogue, or that you’ll likely hear in these weird, angst-ridden times.