Parquet Courts – 7th Level Music

Parquet Courts’ A. Savage announces new album, tour, and single – “Elvis in the Army.”

Today, A. Savage, of the rock band Parquet Courts, announces his second solo album, Several Songs About Fire, out October 6th on Rough Trade Records. He also presents its lead single/video, “Elvis in the Army,” and expands his forthcoming tour. Produced by John Parish in Bristol, Several Songs About Fire is bolstered by the support of Jack Cooper (Modern Nature, Ultimate Painting) and Cate Le Bon, as well as members of Kamikaze Palm Tree & caroline. The end result is tantamount to psychic odyssey, with lead single “Elvis in the Army” placing us in asubterranean venue where the livid, ratifying cymbal raises the room’s blood pressure. “Elvis in the Army” follows the previously-shared “Thanksgiving Prayer” — “an intimate and intricate composition” (Consequence) — and is accompanied by a rousing music video shot in Paris and directed by Emile Moutaud.

Of the track, Savage adds: “We often describe ourselves in geographic terms. American, New Yorker — two terms that I’ve used to identify myself that have to do with being from or of a certain place. So ‘Elvis in the Army’ is a bit of an inventory of those labels. They have less to do with geography than we realize. Really we’re just talking about ourselves, then framing certain characteristics geographically. No matter where I live I’ll have an American psyche until the day I die, for better or for worse. I’ll always be of America. And I can’t imagine a time where New York doesn’t feel like home. But despite that, I’d rather not be associated with a place, at least for now.”

This fall, Savage will embark on a US tour, bringing his acclaimed live performance to a slew of cities, including Chicago, New York, Washington, DC and more, followed by a newly announced run of 2024 UK/EU dates, plus a string of West Coast dates next spring. A full list of dates is below, and tickets for newly announced dates are on sale Friday, August 25 @ 10am local time.

WATCH A. SAVAGE’S “ELVIS IN THE ARMY” VIDEO

Novelist Kathleen Alcott on Several Songs About Fire
~ ~

“I imagine myself playing these songs in a small club that is slowly burning,” Savage says of his new record. After more than a decade in New York, Savage left the city and the United States, marking his exit with a masterpiece of maturity and a worthy corollary to his first solo venture, 2017’s Thawing Dawn. “Fire is something you have to escape from, and in a way this album is about escaping from something. This album is a burning building, and these songs are things I’d leave behind to save myself.”

In its recording, too, Several Songs about Fire became as urgent and intuitive as a response to disaster. Produced by Parish on a 1” 16-track, the album was partially sculpted in the bucolic, nocturnal hush of rural England, where Savage and Cooper worked deep into the night, trying not to wake Cooper’s sleeping daughter. The intimacy of these tracks are refracted by the presence of some of Savage’s closest friends — among them Cate Le Bon — who listened to Savage work on what would become the album during a US tour in 2022. Featuring additional contributions from saxophonist Euan Hinshelwood (Cate Le Bon’s band), drummer Dylan Hadley (Kamikaze Palm Tree, White Fence), and violinist Magdalena McLean (caroline), Several Songs about Fire is a devotional study in tradition — and something all Savage’s own. “It was really special to see them come into existence and to then be in the studio working on them with him,” explains Le Bon of working toward Savage’s vision, rather than within a band. “The beautiful friction of shoulder to shoulder was replaced by something else.”

The record’s singular irreverence is stitched together by Savage’s outsize gifts as a lyricist and observer, a quality Parish calls “anemotional openness guarded by a laconic wit.” Worrying questions of wealth and poverty, self and other, Savage displays the poet’s gift of knowing when to narrate and when to vanish, leaving the listener to their own emotional privacy rather than instructing them how to feel through vertiginous inversions of instrumentation and lyrics. Influenced by the disparate vantage points of Sybille Baier and Townes Van Zandt, Savage joins a canon of songwriters whose project is a constantly dilating aperture and perspective.

In rendering the signage of laundromats and threats of debt collectors as glistering and totemic as the scope of mountains, rivers, seas, and skies, Savage finds hopes and curses in equal measure — inviting thelistener to consider a life in which attention is a religion, and thebody is the divine text. Like the survivor of exodus, Savage says: “I don’t really remember the process of writing. I just see the evidence of it when I reopen a notebook.” Several Songs About Fire stands as an act of nearly libidinal rebellion against a moment when so much of life is the blue light of screens. This is an album whose topic is no less than the sublime: the moments in which a sensory experience becomes aholiness or possession of its own, and the self floats above it.

PRE-ORDER SEVERAL SONGS ABOUT FIRE

WATCH THE “THANKSGIVING PRAYER” VIDEO

SEVERAL SONGS ABOUT FIRE TRACKLIST
1. Hurtin’ or Healed
2. Elvis in the Army
3. Le Grande Balloon
4. My my, My Dear
5. Riding Cobbles
6. Mountain Time
7. David’s Dead
8. Thanksgiving Prayer
9. My New Green Coat
10. Out Of Focus

A. SAVAGE TOUR DATES (NEW DATES IN BOLD)
Sat. Sep. 30 – Newport, Essex, UK @ Murmuration Festival
Fri. Oct. 20 – Portland, ME @ SPACE ^
Sat. Oct. 21 – Boston, MA @ Crystal Ballroom ^
Sun. Oct. 22 – Portsmouth, NH @ Press Room ^
Tue. Oct. 24 – Toronto, ON @ Velvet Underground ^
Wed. Oct. 25 – Kalamazoo, MI @ Eccentric Cafe ^
Fri. Oct. 27 – Chicago, IL @ Empty Bottle ^
Sat. Oct. 28 – St. Paul, MN @ Turf Club *
Sun. Oct. 29 – Milwaukee, WI @ Colectivo #
Mon. Oct. 30 – St. Louis, MO @ Off Broadway %
Wed. Nov. 1 – Columbus, OH @ Ace of Cups %
Thu. Nov. 2 – Louisville, KY @ Whirling Tiger %
Fri. Nov. 3 – Nashville, TN @ Third Man %
Sat. Nov. 4 – Atlanta, GA @ The Earl %
Sun. Nov. 5 – Asheville, NC @ Grey Eagle
Tue. Nov. 7 – Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle %
Thu. Nov. 9 – Washington, DC @ Black Cat %
Fri. Nov. 10 – Philadelphia, PA @ First Unitarian %
Sat. Nov. 11 – New York, NY @ Bowery Ballroom %
Thu. Feb 08, 2024 – Manchester, UK @ Pink Room
Fri. Feb 09, 2024 – Dublin, Ireland @ Workmans Club
Sun. Feb 11, 2024 – Glasgow, UK @ Broadcast
Mon. Feb 12, 2024 – Bristol, UK @ Thekla
Wed. Feb 14, 2024 – London, UK @ The Garage
Thu. Feb 15, 2024 – Paris, France @ La Maroquinerie
Fri. Feb 16, 2024 – Brussels, Belgium @ Botanique Rotonde
Sun. Feb 18, 2024 – Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Paradiso Upstairs
Mon. Feb 19, 2024 – Cologne, Germany @ MTC Club
Wed. Feb 21, 2024 – Copenhagen, Denmark @ Ideal Bar – Vega
Thu. Feb 22, 2024 – Berlin, Germany @ Privat Club
Fri. Apr 05, 2024 – Austin, TX @ The Far Out
Sun. Apr 07, 2024 – Santa Fe, NM @ Meow Wolf
Tue. Apr 09, 2024 – Tucson, AZ @ Club Congress
Wed. Apr 10, 2024 – Pioneertown, CA @ Pappy & Harriet’s
Thu. Apr 11, 2024 – Santa Ana, CA @ Constellation Room
Fri. Apr 12, 2024 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Teragram Ballroom
Sat. Apr 13, 2024 – San Francisco, CA @ Rickshaw Stop
Mon. Apr 15, 2024 – Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios
Tue. Apr 16, 2024 – Seattle, WA @ Tractor Tavern

^ w/ Annie Hart
* w/ Cha Cha
# w/ Diet Lite
% w/ Sluice

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Jacob at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Top 30 albums of 2021: #’s 15 – 11

We’re halfway through the list. Who’s here?

#15: Alex Maas – Levitation Sessions

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.

#14: Parquet Courts – Sympathy for Life

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.

#13: TV Priest – Uppers

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.

#12: Stöner – Live in the Mojave Desert Volume 4

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.

#11: Durand Jones & The Indications – Private Space

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.

We’re into the top 10 tomorrow!

Keep your mind open.

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Review: Parquet Courts – Sympathy for Life

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?

Keep your mind open.

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[Thanks to Jacob at Pitch Perfect PR.]

Parquet Courts creeps up on us with new single, “Black Widow Spider.”

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.”

WATCH PARQUET COURTS’ VIDEO FOR “BLACK WIDOW SPIDER”

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.

PARQUET COURTS TOUR DATES (TICKETS)

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.

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[Thanks to Jacob at Pitch Perfect PR.]