Demdike Stare was a project founded in 2009 in Manchester, England by two well-known characters from that city's music scene. Miles Whittaker was half of the respected dub techno duo Pendle Coven and also recorded under the monikers MLZ and Daughter of the Industrial Revolution. Sean Canty was a renowned vinyl obsessive who worked at the label Finders Keepers and could often be found digging in the crates of local record shops for rare wax nuggets. His collection of obscure '60s funk and soul records formed the basis for DJ Woody's A Country Practice mixtape CD, on which he was credited under the name "Sean Vinylment".

In Demdike Stare, Canty's love for ultra-rare Middle Eastern soundtrack albums and icy Scandinavian drone music came together with Whittaker's decade-and-a-half of production expertise. The project's name is an extension of Whittaker's main act Pendle Coven, which is named for the infamous 1612 witch trials centered around Pendle Hill in Lancashire. Elizabeth Southerns, better known as Demdike, was one of the central defendants in the case; she herself died while awaiting trial for witchcraft, but ten people, including several members of her family, were eventually hanged. It follows that the duo's music should be suitably creepy, and it is; their haunting soundscapes rooted in dub and the stark minimalism of techno, are infused with exotic rhythms and samples, and at times have a disturbingly otherworldly quality, as though transmitted from the other side. Their debut album, Symbiosis, was originally released as two separate ultra-limited vinyl LPs (300 copies each) and fittingly, was first issued in CD format less than a week before Hallowe'en.