Parades is the highly anticipated second album by Denmark's Efterklang, the follow up to their underground hit of 2004, Tripper. lComprising 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. Recorded concurrently with the critically acclaimed (and highly collectable) limited edition Under Giant Trees mini-album in April, Parades is cut from a different cloth: this is all new material spun from raw ingredients, carefully stitched and lovingly embroidered with fine detail. The recording itself took 18 intense months and involved more than 30 guest musicians, including a string quartet, a brass quintet and three separate choirs. Unlike previous recordings, the band relied less on digital techniquesand went for a palatial sound by recording in large rooms. 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.lParades 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.