DEMOS

WORDS: STEVE SPITHRAY

DEMO OF THE MONTH

Demon Summer - Parr Street Session

When a local band splits, memories often dissipate quickly into thin air like waking from a dream, until all but a small group of band members and close mates remember them; something of a trite reworking of the ‘you come in on your own, and you leave on your own’ analogy. Hartlepool’s Demon Summer initially split in 2004 after their drummer left before they could release their Parr Street Session demo (and crucially before being able to leave any social media fossil record) but they are now doing the decent thing and putting all their back catalogue up on Bandcamp. It is telling that without the bumf to hand you would never know this has been gathering dust for fifteen-odd years; with a touch of then contemporaries Puressence about it, leading track Founder is a slightly elegiac indie gem perfect for all those summer festivals. www.demonsummer.bandcamp.com

Sleepy D – Garden

With a post-hardcore discordant bassline, Gothic, almost spoken word, vocals and a blend of distorted guitar and industrial synths, Sleepy D’s Garden is certainly original. And where less is definitely more it remains minimal enough to draw you in but intense enough to unsettle, so that you never quite know what to expect next. The horror-ish monologue and an odd childlike quality to an instrumental section towards the end lend it a genuinely intriguing but disquieting temper, a bit like those old number station recordings with ice cream van music in the background. Splendid. www.sleepydsleepyd.bandcamp.com

Dassia – Holding Me Down

If lockdown has done one thing it seems to have galvanised those bedroom techno noodlers often detached from usual or more visible ‘scenes’, and Holding Me Down is four-and-a-half minutes of impeccably produced nightclub fodder. Think timeless Kylie or latter-day Madonna with a touch of R&B; perfect to soundtrack one of those Geordie Shore or Love Island out-take shows. I don’t know who Dassia is and have little desire to find out as the track does nothing for me, but on a drunken night out at midnight in the Bigg Market...what the hell, why not? www.soundcloud.com/dassiaband

EllCavell – Stand Alone

There was a music industry rumour in the 90s that Cliff Richard had produced an anonymous white label house track just to prove how easy it is to make dance music, but that it was a massive flop because, basically, it was shit. Surprisingly, minimal deep electronica is a genre sometimes overlooked in the NARC. demos column but these are strange times indeed. Stand Alone builds into a pretty decent percussion-led instrumental house tune, as pleasant as it is on the ear (and the drop at the five minute mark is sublime) I can’t help think it’s just something knocked-up in twenty minutes on Ableton or GarageBand or any old sampler just to relieve the boredom, or perhaps prove a point. www.facebook.com/ellcavell

Terri Ann – Trust Me

Trust Me by Terri Ann is more geographically surplus dance music in the shape of the sort of ambient house that Mixmag et al would probably say is everything that is wrong with Ibiza nowadays but, by George, when the pubs open and the sun comes out it’s what we are all going to be dancing to. Gentle piano, finger click beats and a soulful way with a melancholic relationship lyric, Terri Ann harnesses the loosely jazzy vibes of Groove Armada’s At The River but pairs it with Alicia Keys’ more blissfully esoteric moments as it evolves into something even more righteous and goodly. www.facebook.com/terriannsings