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::k4:
a r t i s t :: Parquet Courts
t i t l e :: Human Performance
d a t e :: 2016-00-00
l a b e l :: Rough Trade
g e n r e :: Indie
s o u r c e :: CD
b i t r a t e :: 247 kbps avg
e n c o d e r :: LAME 3.98.4 -V 0
t r a c k s :: 13
p l a y t i m e :: 42:21
s i z e :: 74.36MB
tracklist
1 Dust 3:57
2 Human Performance 4:15
3 Outside 1:45
4 I Was Just Here 1:48
5 Paraphrased 3:01
6 Captive Of The Sun 2:04
7 Steady On My Mind 3:38
8 One Man No City 6:24
9 Berlin Got Blurry 3:26
10 Keep It Even 2:47
11 Two Dead Cops 3:05
12 Pathos Prairie 2:51
13 It's Gonna Happen 3:20
releasenotes
When Parquet Courts debuted in 2011 with the supremely bratty American
Specialties cassetteùits Dada-esque cover art a repurposed Chinese takeout
menuùAndrew Savage, who is also a visual artist, presented the facts
unsentimentally. "Facebook pages/ Boring boring!/ Rock'n'roll has got me
snoring," he gasped over a skeleton of atonal guitar-noise, ultimately landing
upon the most sacred of conclusions: "Music! Matters! More than ever! Free
your brain and conform never!" Lucky for us, Parquet Courts have spent the
past five years heeding their own call.
With Human Performance, their third proper album and first for London's
legendary Rough Trade Records, Parquet Courts offer a fine testament to rock's
continued power and relevance. They might mine the past for feedback and
eccentricities, but their astute lyrics tackle the present
head-onùco-songwriters Savage and Austin Brown write as if their songs might
have real-world consequences. Parquet Courts emerged at a good time, when we
yearn for something slightly more intellectual and aware and less about vibeùa
longing that has spread into all areas of music culture. While not explicitly
political, Parquet Courts are definitely a thinking band, and a critical one,
which is equally important when the world is falling apart. Perhaps some of
this sharpness comes from their roots in the DIY punk and hardcore underground
with their previous bands, including Wiccans and the criminally overlooked
Teenage Cool Kids.
At its best, Human Performance is Parquet Courts in a mellower, heart-stopping
Velvet Underground mode, but it is also at turns upbeat and funny, sensitive
and odd. Compositionally, these are the most dynamic Parquet Courts songs yet.
You could no longer brush these guys off as mere Modern Lovers rip-offs, as
you might have around 2012's clangoring, whip-smart Light Up Gold. Human
Performance presents a more earnest, emotional side of the band. The record's
bare, stunning closer "It's Gonna Happen," penned by bassist Sean Yeaton and
sung by Savage, recalls the heart-wrenching minimalism of Lou Reed's starry
2000 ballad "Turning Time Around." And it's kind of touching to hear
Brownùauthor of such genius dispatches as "Socrates died in the fucking
gutter!"ùsing a simple, open love song like the wistful road ballad "Steady On
My Mind."
As ever, the fever-pitch of New York life is alive and fast-walking within
these songsùzig-zagging the concrete to blaze past all the downward-gazing
multitaskers too busy texting to get on where they're going. Human Performance
captures the humor and horror of New York in 2016, alive with post-Cagean
street noise, with a faster-louder Ramonic ideal, with the erratic rhythm of
train delays, a bus that never shows up, or the "skull-shaking cadence of the
J train rolls." Something about Parquet Courts' intense-yet-witty existential
energy reminds me of the legendary NYC tour-guide-cum-philosopher Speed
Levitch (immortalized in '90s doc The Cruise), who has long approached New
York as if the city itself were an epic poem.
The sour rattle of Human Performance's absurd and charmingly cartoonish opener
"Dust" juxtaposes so many elementsùjaunty piano riffs, discordant car honks,
sweet organsùthat you could imagine it soundtracking the opening sequence to a
demented musical. "Dust is everywhere/ Sweep," Brown taunts on loop, and it is
not a stretch to hear the decrepitude as a metaphor for the finely-ground
wreckage of Western civilization that we have all inherited. There is dread
implied, but "Dust" mostly makes you laugh. Parquet Courts' take on New York
life grows legitimately and rightfully severe on "Two Dead Cops," a sobering
and compact punk song that is literally about two cops who were murdered in
Savage's Bed-Stuy neighborhood.
There are songs on Human Performance that defy logic; they should not work and
yet somehow, they do. On the trudging, visceral centerpiece "Captive of the
Sun," the Beaumont, Tx.-bred Brown's rhythmic delivery is basically rapping.
(He has written at length about his intense personal connection to the
"outsider art" that is Houston rap.) Earlier, Sean Yeaton voices some
city-fueled discontent with the stream-of-conscious curiosity "I Was Just
Here." It takes on a classic New York dilemmaùa jarring elegy for a Chinese
restaurant that has recently closed much to his surprise and chagrin. "You
look so nice/ Chinese fried rice/ Wouldn't you know/ That place just closed,"
the band laments with an alien Devo affect, in turn evoking the beloved
underground punk-band-of-the-moment, Indiana's Coneheads.
The latent weirdness of "I Was Just Here" reminds me of the time Savage
wearily shouted-out the true freaks of Zappa's backing band, the Mothers of
Invention, in a cheeky Teenage Cool Kids song called "Beg to Differ." In fact,
there are several moments on Human Performance that recall Teenage Cool Kids'
2011 cult hit Denton After Sunset (in which Savage romanticized Texas in a way
to rival John Darnielle). In some of Human Performance's best songsùlike
"Berlin Got Blurry," with its winding Spaghetti Western riff and wandering
spiritùthere's a bright directness he hasn't shown since back then. Denton
After Sunset was a love letter of sorts to the place Savage came from; it
showed his adept understanding of the evocative power of geography, something
he's carried into his New York songbook.
Alongside the likes of Courtney Barnett and Sadie Dupuis, Savage remains one
of the best rock lyricists of his generation. In the past, he has written
philosophical punk songs about cats, candy, and existence; about Stalinist art
and opera. Here, he cuts inward, clawing further into his own soul. It's in
the arresting one-two punch of "Human Performance" and "Outside" that Savage's
writing shines most elegantly. These are break-up songs, for sure, but
sometimes it's hard to tell if Savage is breaking up with a lover or with
himself. At the core of the soulful "Human Performance" is a difficult, messy
question: Am I good person, or am I fooling everyone, including myself?
Savage's tender ruminations on love and loneliness are deeply self-critical:
"I told you I loved you/ Did I even deserve it? When you returned it," he
croons, sounding like Dylan circa Nashville Skyline. The layered feel of the
track's chorus reminds me of the "multi-latch gating" technique that Tony
Visconti used to produce "Heroes"ùeach time Savage screams, the echoes sound
further away, more unhinged and desperate, tempered by lovely organ lines and
jazzy drum patterns.
The sub-two-minute "Outside" follows, and it is the sunniest, snappiest
Parquet Courts tune everùa song about admission, about accepting your flaws
and finding peace. For such a short song it is impossibly beautiful. "Dear
everything I've harmed/ My fault lies on my tongue/ And I take it holy as a
last rite," Savage sings, his voice shining with palpable abandon and relief,
a kind you only get from telling the truth. "Outside" is ultimately about
turning honesty and imperfection into virtues, and that purity is doubled by
its indelible melody. Little details, like a lopsided beat and an endearing
note sung flat, only serve to deepen it.
Human Performance is a bracing snapshot of a band on a roll. As punk turns 40
on both sides of the Atlantic this year, it's fitting that this record is out
on Rough Tradeùthat era's arty, leftist wing of outsiders-among-outsiders.
You'd be hard pressed to find a contemporary rock band honoring the classic
Rough Trade legacy as well as Parquet Courts, in both sound and spirit, while
doing something audacious and new. In a sense, they even revive Rough Trade's
O.G. connection to eccentric Texas psych-rock, from back when conceptual
artist Mayo Thompson of the Red Krayola was the label's heady spokesperson,
producing crucial records by the Raincoats and the Fall, and collaborating
with members of Pere Ubu and Swell Maps. Parquet Courts deserve to be
discussed within this lineage. Intelligence is addictive, and there is
accordingly a quiet mania to Parquet Courts fandom that matches that of their
forebears. On Human Performance, Parquet Courts send a generation-skewing
message that avails not, time nor place: it is cool to really think.
https://parquetcourts.wordpress.com
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