Critiques CD: Demdike Stare | Elemental (2CD edition)

Clocking in at two hours and 18 tracks, Elemental is an epic work of industrial proportions and, apparently, a concept album without a concept. Or have all concepts been deconstructed and an edifice of debris and architectural noise erected in their place? Elemental is a labor of dark dub, drone and doubt, where concrete sounds are licked away at by electronic waves of distortion, creating an eroded, yet richly textured atmosphere where music and nature have submitted to our post-industrial condition. Demdike Stare bury music under ambient orchestral dirt then dig up the remains to reveal an exquisite corpse of powerful and difficult beauty. April 19^th at SAT.