Description
“Think I will set up a booth to sell fried infant fat to the evil parade peeps. But as the demons fly & buzz around the street doing they circus stunting, i would lift open a sewer cap with a rusty iron and slowly creep into the sewers cause who the f**uck is gonna wanna sell ANYTHING at a Demon Parade. You just gonna loose, prob. everything. They don’t necessarily carry around change in a chain wallet do they? Or want overpriced Demon Cokes? No way hose.’ AND it would be mad LATE at night. No thanks.
So, I would gander, the real party (human at least) would be UNDER the demon parade. With total weirdo’s. Taking the most of the awful echoey, grating, strange acoustics that lie under the cement streets under the prancing of the demon hooves/feet. I have in my brain an imagine of a m-f duo, comfortable to the street chaos as they are from the free-anarchy of K-town, huddled around the sewer basement by trash can firelight making a slow-MO nerve numbing in tune/outta tune semitone racket to the soundtrack of their busy brain/nuggets. Would sound amazing, slow and mean, thick and meaty but uncluttered, strange and comfortable, KINDA. Like a mystery w/o a mellow ending. Would sound like…..DEMON PARADE. Duh. But like, under the streets to a DEMON PARADE. Cause: See ABOVE. True Family Underground story: One rainy spring night outside a punk club in K-town, some young freeker jammers punkers were looting brew from a Korean Nail Saloon / Party store right next door that left their door unlocked. As scattering happy punkers were cleaning this joint out and stuffing as many tall boys into band-adourned flannel shirts, the two relaxed m-f members of FAMILY UNDERGROUND thought it would be more kosher to do a super quiet set inside, a challenge to high volume AKA being caught. Me & wolf boys were the only ones in attendance to this theft-gig and were blown away by watching the FU’s wave papers, move cutlery around, and get UNSOUND from Korean nail equipment NOT plugged in. It was amazing. It was, in my simple brain, what seeing the mythical SOUTHFIELD CAFETERIA FORK BAND live on the coldest night in winter must’ve been like. Super kool. After they did this NON SOUND FAMILY UNDERGROUND concert, the duo went peacefully to the cooler, gripped FIVE tall boys and we went black outside, UNCAUGHT. Life on the edge, HOW WE DO IT YO.
So anyway, Dig this LP. Its real frozen/wild/weird. Sounds good pitched down. UNLIKE: the trees, mob 47, or System Fucker. My fave recs. are A: by my friends & B: portals to another wild/weird world cause this plane SUX. But this here DEMON PARADE. ACE.” -John Olzone Winter 2010
“Danish farm machinery comes alive and waits outside the shed to murder you and yours on the A-side, and for me that’s been a fairly typical response to most Family Underground product that’s come through here – some funny words to something that doesn’t mean much of anything. The good stuff everyone keeps referring to, the drivers behind how this group managed to bag so many releases in years past, never really materialized when and where I needed it. And truthfully there’s one side of this record with two long pieces of straight pain, either via amp abuse or violin torture. But the sidelong trip on the flip, “Singly Lost, Eternally Gained (Part One and Two)” is the moment where the Fam finally clicked with me, aggressively plowing drone fields to start and finishing off with a thumping, pagan howl of guitar and wordless panic, a dense/intense rattle that shifts into greater malevolence with each passing minute. If this was what I was missing, please, give me more.” -Doug Mosurock, Dusted (http://www.dustedmagazine.com/features/931)
“Massively dark/claustrophobic set of new industrial ritual from the duo line-up of this excellent Euro commune/drone group. Easily one of the most ‘unnerving’ full-lengths in their catalogue, Demon Parade opens with a power drone that sounds like a lightning strike in a ventilator shaft while hideously modulated vocals flicker in the foreground ala early Whitehouse/Throbbing Gristle circa “Hamburger Lady”. “The Spectral Janitor” extends this mood into a despairing minimalist tone piece with distressed wordless vocals that teases apart the sound of no-mind with the kind of aggressive string sonorities of early Vibracathedral Orchestra plays Heathen Earth. The second side is dominated by a single track, “Singly Lost, Eternally Gained”, that is heavier on the fuzz, with the organic/electronic aspect of MB put to the service of an industrial post-“Sister Ray” mainline. Still one of the best European exponents of the nowhere zone, this is classic black psychedelic punk.” -Volcanic Tongue
“This crew from Denmark gives us another dark dose of their drone-rock based nightmares. “Son of the Morning” kicks off side A with a pandemonium of buzzing and humming like a poorly lit generator room where some psycho has stashed his murdered evidence. He lies in wait for you next. Its intensity ebbs and flows and the tortured vocal effects only add to the thrill. Total horror soundtrack. Then this gives way to “The Spectral Janitor,” which makes me think of the spine-tingling high-pitched drone of “The Shining’s” film score toward the latter half. Some of the guitar anguish sounds caught between a symphonic warm up and a set of bagpipes. The leveled vocal drone makes for a nice effect too. The second side is a nice two-part track, “Singly Lost, Eternally Gained.” This one is a less assaulting dronesphere of reverb and more minimal noise. At least, this is how it starts. It builds and is a thick wall of fuzzy noise by the end of Part One. It only breathes to usher you into some harsh, gliding guitar layers for Part Two. Then, somewhere in the middle of this second part there is the effect of mucky, slippery drift with lost, echoed vocals. It comes to a screeching halt and then ends abruptly.
If you like noise laced with a reluctant terror, “Demon Parade” is definitely for you. These little hellions will do a march into your ears and drive you to madness. This is what Ed Gein’s basement would’ve shared with us if it could speak. The stark black and white photography on the cover and the LP labels add to the unsettling feel of this record. I mean, the cover has a woman running away through the woods from some kind of menace. Who knows what was in that building behind her! And the scratched white lettering on the back cover, listing the track titles and such, also adds to the lunacy. DNT did another great job releasing this one, proving again and again that its releases are always a can’t-miss.” -Dave Miller, Foxy Digitalis (http://www.foxydigitalis.com/foxyd/?p=3890)
“You can trust this Danish trio when it comes to bringing on the weird shit. With releases on Chocolate Monk, Not Not Fun, Qbico, American Tapes and Weird Forest, they’ve amassed an impressive bunch of releases over the last 8 years or so. ‘Demon Parade’ has them working in some bleak alternative reality/black zone, with doomed buzzing feedback and dismembered vocal torment! This should have been the soundtrack to the ultra-freaky bits of the Jacobs Ladder movie. ‘Tantalizing Nightmare Visions’ resembles Mouthus on a really fucking bad trip.” -norman records
“A tenuous link to the recently-reviewed ‘Demon Seed’ LP, the ‘Demon Parade’ LP by Family Underground is a bombastic overstatement when compared to the compositional minimalism of the former. Nevertheless, a likeness stands to be addressed where both releases represent increments on a (centi-) metric scale of abstract music. Split in four over three tracks (the B-side being a two-parter), the Danish trio’s latest (and second consecutive LP for DNT) continues to explore the profits of total drone. Reminiscent of Workbench and related material for Heavy Tapes, “Son of the Morning” is motoric, mottled stuff with a bassy growl and simpering whine – drone queasy and smooth transition into “The Spectral Janitor”, a fly-blown tableau like a Current 93 instrumental without reprise. In smart compliment, the sidelong “Singly Lost, Eternally Gained” lets a bit more daylight into the process, advancing with the same drone-motivation but relaxing (and at times entirely abandoning) its grip on the reigns. Like an exploded drawing, each detail becomes vividly apparent and then, almost rhythmic by the end. Dominated by a convulsing electric guitar, the track’s initial wash parts like an overcast sky to reveal an acidic lead over the woven stutter of an atmosphere so dense that it couldn’t not have been there all along; like Gown with less emphasis on a central instrument, the convocation runs its course freely – yet held in place by the vinyl’s duration – and moves through a handful of timbres in order to squeeze the most out of each sound. As if to restate this, a gnawed tongue moans several verses, not in order to speak, but simply to demo the effects and salute the audience back home. On black vinyl in glossy sleeves with some of DNT’s best art yet.” -Animal Psi
“I feel like it’s been a while since Danish drone hounds Family Underground dropped a record and considering Demon Parade is one of their best, I’m wondering if they’ve been holding out on us. What other sounds do they have locked up in the vault? “Son of the Morning” features what I consider to be the classic Fam Underground sound. Jagged electronic drones, agitation situated within stagnation and slow-motion. Some tones stay static, serrating at an even pace while another tone is gradually jostled back and forth between pitches. There’s a dose of unintelligible vocal muck in the midst of it all. You know I’ve been thinking it was vocals but it may be a horn of some sort, really can’t say. The more I listen, the less I know. A strange, plink-plonk melody emerges barely towards the end of the track lending a rigid, rhythmic sway. This track should keep all the fans satisfied but it’s the following tracks that I found the most interesting. “The Spectral Janitor” (killer title by the way) is heavy on the violin drones which I am all about. The Family keeps the piece in the pocket, not too abrasive but not too smooth or pretty either. With strange permutations from each sound source occurring throughout, the piece evolves very subtly, with an array of sounds constantly shifting within a certain framework. Nice work. The second side is two tracks merged as one, “Singly Lost, Eternally Gained Part One and Two.” Dark as hell, the thing rolls to a start with a bowed drone, a barren bass pound every 10 seconds and what sounds like a noisy recording of a boxcar. Gradually the plot thickens, more sounds enter and the affair gets noisier but no less bleak. When “Part One” reaches its breaking point and shuffles off into darkness, “Part Two” appears with a slightly more optimistic tone. Whaaa? Are these guys actually going to end on an upbeat note? The distorted oscillations are still present but so is a chiming keyboard part, synth squelch and even some vague axe moves. I’ll take it. That’s not as surprising as what happens next. Out of the cacophony comes a totally bizarre groove. Like Excepter doing trip hop, maybe? A little? I don’t know man, cause it isn’t some accidental thing. There’s a bass line, a heavily effected percussion track and then a totally sloshed voice comes into focus. Yes, this has happened. Family Underground have made a disco record. Fuck. Yes. Please excuse me while I board this soul train and ride it to the end of the groove. All aboard! Considering the past couple Family Underground LPs and that Attestupa record, DNT is really holding it down when it comes to dark-ass Scandinavian sounds. Keep ’em comin’. Demon Parade may even be the best of ’em though it’s hard to turn down the plague-ridden rage of that Attestupa record. Sparse and ambiguously great artwork from DNT completes the package. Check this bastard out.” –Auxiliary Out
