Cool As Sh*t – PARQUET COURTS

 HUMAN PERFORMANCE OUT 4/8 ON ROUGH TRADE / RHYTHMETHOD

Human Performance is out 4/8 on Rough Trade. Recorded over the course of a year against a backdrop of personal instability, Human Performance massively expands the idea of what a Parquet Courts record can be. They’ve been one of the most critically acclaimed bands of the last 5 years; this is the record that backs all those words up.

“Every day it starts, anxiety,” began the first song on 2014’s Content Nausea. Those were essentially the song’s only lyrics, but Human Performance picks up where that thought left off, picking apart the anxieties of modern life: “The unavoidable noise of NYC that can be maddening, the kind of the impossible struggle against clutter, whether it’s physical or mental or social,” says singer, guitarist and Human Performance producer/mixer Austin Brown.

There has always been the emotional side of Parquet Courts, which has always had an important balance with the more discussed cerebral side, but Andrew Savage sees Human Performance as a redistribution of weight in that balance. “I began to question my humanity, and if it was always as sincere as I thought, or if it was a performance,” says Savage. “I felt like a sort of malfunctioning apparatus,” he says. “Like a machine programmed to be human showing signs of defect.”

The sonic diversity, time, and existential effort that went into its creation makes Human Performance Parquet Courts’ most ambitious record to date. It’s a work of incredible creative vision born of seemingly insurmountable adversity. It is also their most accessible record yet.

Watch the video for single, “Berlin Got Blurry,” which comes from their forthcoming Rough Trade LP, Human Performance. Anyone who knows anything about Parquet Courts will watch this video with their jaw slightly agape. It’s without a doubt the best-produced Parquet Courts video released to date. It’s, ya know, like a proper VIDEO video. 120 Minutes, meet Parquet Courts. “Berlin Got Blurry” the SONG is one of existential nausea, confusion, and finding oneself in a place you don’t recognize. Whereas the first song to be shared, “Dust,” was a minimalist treatise on social anxiety, “Berlin Got Blurry” is one of the band’s most accessible songs yet, a jangly affair with a serpentine guitar lick that’s as dizzying as it is memorable.

“‘Berlin Got Blurry’ is a song about saying goodbye to someone from the other side of the world,” says songwriter Andrew Savage, “and about feeling completely foreign to your environment; knowing you can’t go home, but not knowing where you belong.” Regarding the video, he continues, “I wrote the song in Berlin, so it made sense to try to recreate my experience for the video. It was shot on 16mm by the wonderful, talented and patient Claes Nordwall, who was able to take my very loose concept and make it into something really beautiful.”

Watch the video for first single ‘Dust’

HUMAN PERFORMANCE TRACKLISTING

1. Dust
2. Human Performance
3. Outside
4. I Was Just Here
5. Paraphrased
6. Captive Of The Sun
7. Steady On My Mind
8. On Man, No City
9. Berlin Got Blurry
10. Keep It Even
11. Two Dead Cops
12. Pathos Prairie
13. It’s Gonna Happen

Parquet Courts

Rough Trade – Parquet Courts

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