efterklang - parades

.:: Parades is the highly anticipated second album by Denmark’s Efterklang, the follow up to their underground hit of 2004, Tripper.

Comprising 11 majestic, otherworldly pop songs, Parades manages to be both magnificently ambitious and engagingly intimate; a breathtaking panorama of sound with few clear antecedents. Music with no boundaries. In a parallel universe, songs like ‘Mirador’ and ‘Caravan’ would be number one forever…

Though the music that became Parades was recorded concurrently with the critically acclaimed (and already collectible) Under Giant Trees mini-album that preceded it in April, the latter was essentially a summation of songs the band had pieced together on tour in 2005.

Parades is cut from a different cloth: this is all new material spun from raw ingredients, carefully stitched and lovingly embroidered with fine detail. If you let yourself be enveloped, this living tapestry could take years to unpick.

Unlike previous recordings, the band relied less on digital techniques and went for a palatial sound by recording in large rooms. A boys’ choir and a church organ were recorded in a church, while other instruments were recorded in their studio bathroom and hallway; others in an echo chamber.

Darren Allison (who worked on My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless, and Ladies and Gentlemen… by Spiritualized – records that surely need no introduction) mixed the album on analogue equipment with Efterklang’s Mads Brauer, distinguishing the minutiae of sound while keeping the bigger picture of each song firmly in focus.

Parades features similarly lavish artwork to Under Giant Trees, by Danish artists Hvass&Hannibal and UFEX. Like a day-glo Hieronymus Bosch, the design carries through the musical idea of minuscule detail on an epic scale.

Efterklang will take their stunning eight-person live show on a World tour this autumn that will continue until late next year, with numerous festival appearances planned for summer 2008.

Like a gigantic piece of musical theatre, Parades is a remarkable achievement, dense and diverse, and clearly a lot of fun to put together. You’ve never heard anything like it.

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