This is a haunting live album from the lead singer of The Black Angels, and a performance of Maas’ first solo album – Luca. His backing band is top-notch and it’s like listening to a dream.
Chock-full of post-punk bangers and piercing lyrics about life during and after the pandemic that hit harder now than all of last year, Parquet Courts’ Sympathy for Life is one of those records that reveals more of itself with each listen.
I’m so glad I heard these guys on BBC 6 Music and tracked down Uppers, because I knew it was going to be one of my favorite records of 2021 within thirty seconds on the opening track. Fun lyrics, ripping riffs, and killer beats make it a go-to record for high energy.
A live recording that sounds good enough to be a studio album, Stöner’s Live in the Mojave Desert session is like having a desert rock concert in your house. Play at maximum volume.
One of the smoothest and grooviest records of 2021 came from these guys who embraced their love of disco and mixed it with their reverence for soul. There isn’t a weak track on the whole album.
Constructed from a lot of improvised jam sessions, Parquet Courts‘ new album, Sympathy for Life, continues to embrace the band’s love of dance music and club rock.
Starting out with the groovy, bad-ass “Walking at a Downtown Pace,” the band makes you want to dress up, throw on some sunglasses at night, and strut your stuff on the way, at, and back from the club. The bass line is killer, the guitars a bit frantic, and the drums downright wicked. The song, like all the others on the record, was written before the pandemic, but now takes on an altered meaning post-pandemic. The lyrics are brutal truths: “I’m making plans for the day all of this is through…Food that I’ll taste and all the drinks that I’ll consume, return the smile on an unmasked friend…” / “Walk at a downtown pace and treasure the crowds that once made me act so annoyed.” / “Planning the future as if time is yours to choose.”
“Black Widow Spider” is a rocker about intense grief and trying to move beyond it. Believe me, I get it. “Marathon of Anger” brings in more synthesizers and electronic beats to create a dub-like banger about all of us getting back to the work of supporting each other after being separated for so long. “Just Shadows” is a tale of becoming addicted to routine, and how that gives you the false impression that you’re happy and everything is go well.
The beats on “Plant Life” would fit right in on a Talking Heads record. “Application Apparatus” is a song about the benefits and creepiness of GPS mapping – told with post-punk electro dance beats and guitar. “Homo Sapien” cranks the distortion for a song about how we’ve evolved from ancestors who beat stones into tools to people who crave “the sensual touch of glass, so smooth on the fingertips, the erotic quality of not feeling meaningless.” The title track seems to have been recorded with the ghost of Curtis Mayfield in the studio – it’s that groovy.
“Zoom Out” encourages us to look at the bigger picture (“When you zoom out, tomorrow is now. When you zoom out, together is now.”) – and to dance. “Trullo” is a weird, funky, skronky tale about cabin fever. The closer, “Pulcinella,” is a tale about being hesitant to embrace love again, especially after a long time away from it (“…the mind wanders home like a cat does when it knows it’s time to feed again.”). Again, I can relate.
The album is a clever mix of excellent lyrics, funky beats, and the promise of more epic things to come. Two of the tracks, “Marathon of Anger” and “Plant Life” were edited down from forty-minute jam sessions. I hope they kept recordings of them, because I’d love to hear those. How about releasing them to start afresh in 2022, PQ?
Today, Parquet Courts share a new single/video, “Black Widow Spider,” from their forthcoming album, Sympathy For Life, out October 22nd on Rough Trade Records. In conjunction, they announce extensive touring plans for 2022, starting with a run of North American shows in the spring. Following their highly-praised lead single “Walking at a Downtown Pace,” “Black Widow Spider” kicks off with scorching guitar. In A Savage’s words, “I told [producer] Rodaidh McDonald that I wanted to find a sound that was equal parts Can, Canned Heat and This Heat. He was really into that and probably took some glee in having such a bizarre challenge.” It’s one of the many songs on the new album that began with the band improvising onto tape, after which they started editing and cutting up, leading to the verse.
The accompanying video, directed and animated by Shayne Ehman, is simply great. “We were inspired by the claymation master Art Clokey,” says Ehmman. “I wanted the video to feel like it was shot in the 1950’s and so I used very old lenses. One was a brass projection lens from the 1860’s and another was radioactive.”
Alongside the release of their first single last month, the band also announced the Power of Eleven – eleven global happenings that will occur around the release of the album. The first of these took place in Manhattan with the Gay & Lesbian Big Apple Corp marching band debuting “Walking At A Downtown Pace”. The second of these is happening in Tokyo in conjunction with Big Love Records, with an extremely limited “Black Widow Spider” 7” and t-shirt. More info for this event and the others has been revealed on the band’s website. Sign up to their mailing list for updates.
Sympathy For Life was built largely from improvised jams and produced in league with Rodaidh McDonald (The xx, Hot Chip, David Byrne) and John Parish (PJ Harvey, Aldous Harding, Dry Cleaning). Unlike its globally adored predecessor, 2018’s Wide Awake!, the focus fell on grooves rather than rhythm.
“Most of the songs were created by taking long improvisations and moulding them through our own editing,” explains Austin Brown. “The biggest asset we have as artists is the band. After 10 years together, our greatest instrument is each other. The purest expression of Parquet Courts is when we are improvising.” In a very real sense, the band sampled themselves, molding and chopping their rhythmic and melodic jams to create these songs, to manifest something new.
On Sympathy For Life, Parquet Courts’ thought-provoking rock is dancing to a new tune. The album finds the Brooklyn band at both their most instinctive and electronic, spinning their bewitching, psychedelic storytelling into fresh territory, yet maintaining their unique identity.
Thu. Oct. 28 – Saxapahaw, NC @ Haw River Ballroom ^ Fri. Oct. 29 – Richmond, VA @ The National ^ Sat. Oct. 30 – Baltimore, MD @ Ottobar ^ Sun. Oct. 31 – Lancaster, PA @ Tellus360 ^ Wed. Nov. 03 – Burlington, VT @ Higher Ground ! Thu. Nov. 04 – Portland, ME @ State Theatre ! Fri. Nov. 05 – Holyoke, MA @ Gateway City Arts ! Sat. Nov. 06 – Asbury Park, NJ @ The Stone Pony ! Mon. Nov. 15 – Dallas, TX @ Studio at the Factory Wed. Nov. 17 – Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall Fri. Nov. 19 – Austin, TX @ Stubb’s Waller Creek Amphitheatre Sun. Nov. 21 – Mexico City, MX @ Corona Capital Music Festival Sun. Feb. 27 – Asheville, NC @ The Orange Peel * Mon. Feb. 28 – Athens, GA @ Georgia Theatre * Wed. March 2 – Atlanta, GA @ Variety Playhouse * Thu. March 3 – Birmingham, AL @ Saturn * Fri. March 4 – Nashville, TN @ Cannery Ballroom * Sat. March 5 – St. Louis, MO @ The Pageant * Mon. March 7 – Lawrence, KS @ Liberty Hall * Tue. March 8 – Omaha, NE @ The Waiting Room * Thu. March 10 – Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue * Fri. March 11 – Milwaukee, WI @ Turner Hall * Sat. March 12 – Chicago, IL @ The Riviera Theatre * Sun. March 13 – Detroit, MI @ MOCAD * Tue. Mar. 15, 2022 – Millvale, PA @ Mr. Smalls Theatre * Wed. Mar. 16, 2022 – Cleveland, OH @ Agora Theatre * Thu. March 17 – Toronto, ON @ Queen Elizabeth Theatre * Fri. March 18 – Montreal, QC @ Corona Theatre * Thu. March 31 – Boston, MA @ Royale # Fri. April 1 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel $ Sat. April 2 – Brooklyn, NY @ Brooklyn Steel # Mon. April 4 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club # Tue. April 5 – Philadelphia, PA @ The Fillmore % Fri. April 22 – Seattle, WA @ Showbox at the Market Sat. April 23 – Vancouver, BC @ The Imperial Mon. April 25 – Portland, OR @ Crystal Ballroom Wed. April 27 – Oakland, CA @ Fox Theater Thu. April 28 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Wiltern Theatre Fri. April 29 – Pomona, CA @ The Glass House Sat. April 30 – San Diego, CA @ The Observatory North Park Sat. May 21 – Paris, FR @ La Trianon Sun. May 22 – Antwerp, BE @ Trix Tue. May 24 – Cologne, DE @ Stollwerck Wed. May 25 – Berlin, DE @ Heimathafen Neukölln Fri. May 27 – Hamburg, DE @ Uebel & Gefährlich Sat. May 28 – Nijmegen, NL @ Doornroosje Mon. May 30 – Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso Tue. May 31 – Lille, FR @ Le Grand Mix Wed. June 1 – Lyon, FR @ Epicerie Moderne Fri. June 3 – Barcelona, ES @ Primavera Sound Wed. June 8 – Brighton, UK @ Chalk Thu. June 9 – London, UK @ Brixton O2 Academy Sat. June 11 – Dublin, IE @ Helix Sun. June 12 – Manchester, UK @ Albert Hall Mon. June 13 – Leeds, UK @ Stylus Wed. June 15 – Glasgow, UK @ The Barrowland Ballroom Thu. June 16 – Birmingham, UK @ O2 Institute
& supporting Portugal. The Man ^ w/ P.E. ! w/ Public Practice * w/ Mdou Moctar # w/ Hailu Mergia % w/ Sun Ra Arkestra$ w/ Yu Su
Keep your mind open.
[Creep on over to the subscription box while you’re here.]
