Delmer Darion are a couple of young men originally from the UK’s West-Midlands, but now situated in London. Having shared a couple of early singles, the pair are now announcing their debut album: it’s called Morning Pageants and will be coming out on October 16 through Practise Music – and it was reportedly inspired by a line in the Wallace Stevens poem “Esthétique du Mal”: “The death of Satan was a tragedy for the imagination.”
Alongside that news they’ve shared a new single called “Brossier” about a 16th-century woman called Martha Brossier who faked her own demonic possession. They say:
“For decades in the US, Christian groups were terrified of something called ‘backmasking’, which is where you hide reserved messages in tracks. They claimed rock bands were sneaking Satanic messages into songs – like someone hearing the line “Here’s to my sweet Satan” in “Stairway to Heaven”. What made it worse is that, after people started accusing bands of doing this, a new generation of bands actually did start putting reversed messages in their albums. Like the Slayer album which starts with a voice chanting ‘Join us’ in reverse! Anyway, there may or may not be some backmasking in “Brossier”…”
Stunning dichotomy abounds on “Brossier”, which features washes of synths that stretch and glimmer across the stereo field, gorgeous – but they also kind of moan in a way that makes you think of a medieval torture device. Additions of harp should take “Brossier” to brighter realms, but suddenly it devolves into a juddering beast, with female vocals fluttering in – undoubtedly beautiful, but somehow unsettling when surrounded by the other grinding sonics.
Listen to “Brossier” below or on your preferred streaming service.
Delmer Darion’s debut album Morning Pageants is out on October 16 through Practise Music. Find them on Bandcamp, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
