Slow Parades

Slow Parades is a new project from songwriter-multi-instrumentalist Mike Jasinski and drummer Tim Minnick. From the opening notes, the duo’s debut album Love Me To Death recalls the well-crafted sunshine pop of The 1900s, the Chicago band Jasinski and Minnick helped form in 2004. After leaving the 1900s in 2008, Jasinski took a hard look at life and holed up for a year writing songs to move forward musically. Teaming up with Minnick, the old friends built a makeshift studio in a Logan Square basement and began recording the basic tracks for what would become Love Me To Death. After Minnick embarked on a yearlong trip around the world, Jasinski spent nearly that long finishing the album at Benjamin Balcom’s Minbal Studio (Atlas Sound, White Rabbits) on Chicago’s West Side, enlisting Chicago by-way-of Austin musician Todd Pertll on pedal steel and banjo as well as Balcom’s arrangement and production skills. The finished album fuses perfectly crafted chorus hooks, vintage keys, and elegantly finessed drums with Jasinski’s own voice and observations on life. It brings together the lilting country-rock of Gram Parsons, frenzied orchestral pop of Sufjan Stevens, and the combo organ-charged garage rock of the Nuggets compilations.