Parquet Courts

Parquet Courts will release their much-anticipated new album, Sympathy For Life, this Friday on Rough Trade Records, and play a coinciding record release show at Music Hall of Williamsburg. Today, they present a scorching new single/video, “Homo Sapien.” Additionally, tomorrow, the band will present. Feel Free: Sympathy for Life, Visualized. their NoonChorus livestream event, where fans can hear and see Sympathy for Life. Streaming for one night only, the band enlisted the efforts of 11 amazing visual artists around the world to create a completely unique experience that includes an introduction by NBA Hall of Famer Bill Walton as well as contributions from Adult Swim’s Joe Pera. Buy tickets here.

Sympathy For Life is Parquet Courts at their most instinctive and electronic, spinning their bewitching, psychedelic storytelling into fresh territory, yet maintaining their unique identity.  Although new track “Homo Sapien” is guitar heavy, it still has a grooving edge as A Savage’s vocals ruminate: “The erotic quality of not feeling meaningless // Reflecting a loving gaze // Commanding and amorous // A matte-finished wishing well // Seductive and glamorous.” The accompanying video features the band and was directed by Marisa Gesualdi.

Alongside the release of “Walking At A Downtown Pace,” 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 took place in Tokyo in conjunction with Big Love Records, with an extremely limited “Black Widow Spider” 7” and t-shirt. Since then, four more have taken place, and today, in conjunction with the release of “Homo Sapien,” fans in Paris are able to join A. Savage for a still life painting class and will receive a custom drawing pad designed by the band. More info for these events have 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.