ARCHIVE SERIES 1 (CASSETTE + 12 by SHACKLETON & DEMDIKE STARE

Demdike Stare’s DDS imprint make dreams come true with this first-ever vinyl issue for a legendary Shackleton dubplate, as well as a new mixtape from Demdike themselves - the first in an occasional series of releases that highlight old (and new) tracks !The 12” features the rarest and most sought-after Shackleton track for anyone lucky enough to have heard it. First surfacing circa 2005, when Shackleton and his then-accomplices Appleblim and Vengeance Tenfold were showcasing the nascent Skull Disco sound at dingy dances between London, Manchester and Bristol, it soon attained notoriety as one of those V.I.P. specials that would never see the light of day... until now. Pitching down the vocal and reworking the riddim at a sinuous 138bpm halfstep, it continues a long-standing dialogue between UK dance counter-culture and Jamaican soundsystem music, rendering that stentorian vocal with seismic subs and skeletal, impish drums inna claggy echo chamber aesthetic that would serve to define Skull Disco until its burial in 2008. Ten years later, in retrospect, it stands tall as one of dubstep’s finest moments, marking a pliable point of transition between dancehall, techno and bassbin purgatory that’s rarely been bettered by anyone in terms of enigmatic appeal and sheer, riddimatic palpitations. It’s dreader than dread, and, for our money, worth ten of your rarest Loefah dubs, While that era may seem a long way off now, this plate’s daring, abstract and minimalist production has lost none of its capacity to stop heads in their tracks. The accompanying tape is another Demdike special - another hour long trip through 50 years of deviant music from deep in the archives available only in this combined 12” + cassette package, housed in a screen-printed DDS tote