PARQUET COURTS レコード& CD

Review: Surprising collaborations sometimes yield great results - and Milano is a perfect example. It follows Luppi's previous collaborative album 'Rome', which he released with Danger Mouse in 2011, featuring vocals from Jack White and Norah Jones. This second pairing in an Italian-themed series sees Luppi, the composer partially responsible for Gnarls Barkley's smash hit 'Crazy', arranging the ever-prolific and consistent NY garage rockers Parquet Courts. Added into the mix is Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs - whos vocal features on four tracks are arguably some of her best work in a while. Highlights are plentiful as Luppi wrangles the band on this genius collaboration, from the explosive 'Mount Napoleon', the jagged and unnerving 'Flush', the sleek and frankly hilarious 'Pretty Prizes', right through to the contorted Tom Waits-esque closer 'Cafe Flesh'. 'Milano' is essential listening for any Parquet Courts fan old or new and is evidence that even when working with others, they seem to be continuing their never-ending winning streak.

Review: Surprising collaborations sometimes yield great results - and Milano is a perfect example. It follows Luppi's previous collaborative album 'Rome', which he released with Danger Mouse in 2011, featuring vocals from Jack White and Norah Jones. This second pairing in an Italian-themed series sees Luppi, the composer partially responsible for Gnarls Barkley's smash hit 'Crazy', arranging the ever-prolific and consistent NY garage rockers Parquet Courts. Added into the mix is Karen O of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs - whos vocal features on four tracks are arguably some of her best work in a while. Highlights are plentiful as Luppi wrangles the band on this genius collaboration, from the explosive 'Mount Napoleon', the jagged and unnerving 'Flush', the sleek and frankly hilarious 'Pretty Prizes', right through to the contorted Tom Waits-esque closer 'Cafe Flesh'. 'Milano' is essential listening for any Parquet Courts fan old or new and is evidence that even when working with others, they seem to be continuing their never-ending winning streak.

Review: Apparently not content with releasing one of the most buzzed-about records of the year so far in Sunbathing Animal, the NYC-based square-pegs have hammered out another, more experimental record under the name Parkay Quarts. Yet the songwriting flair of frontmen Andrew Jackson and Austin Brown has always been a result of a strange collision between infectious hooks and jarring dissonance, and the more jammed-out and unpredictable terrain of this album maintains their cockeyed charm and propensity for memorable slacker tunesmanship. Comparisons to Pavement might be more valid than anyone realised, as on the evidence of 'Content Nausea' they share that iconic band's strange and beguiling ability to turn base eccentricity into gold.

Review: It's Parquet Courts, but not as you necessarily know them. Seven albums in and the Brooklyn hipster punks prove they are more vital and adventurous than ever, delivering an 11-strong collection of songs that straddle genres and explore ideas effortlessly. A triumphant return to the release schedule to say the least.

Just take 'Marathon of Anger', for example. If you didn't look at what was playing everyone should and would forgive you for thinking this is some forgotten Talking Heads effort that deserved to be remembered. The fact it's smack bang in between the gritty, post-punk-edged 'Black Widow Spider', and the jaunty, artsy rock 'n' roll of 'Just Shadows', is precisely what we're talking about. Highly original and utterly unforgettable, Sympathy for Life is the kind of record that keeps giving, on every play, and feels built to stand the test of time.

Review: Light Up Gold gets a fitting do-over here, with Parquet Courts' most treasured trophy piece built in the spirit of nostalgia when it was released back in 2013. Now presented on luminous vinyl, eight years on the work will still conjures a sense of pre-responsibility first year at university, skint but smiling because life, and the mid-30s paunch, hadn't got to us yet.

Pitchfork once described Parquet Courts as "slackers in an almost classical sense", and the phrase is so accurate. A swill of post punk, kebab stain of DIY indie, and plenty of affectation, the band's lackadaisical responses to pretty much any request imaginable are almost audible. Don't fight them, though - history keeps teaching us that in the end youth will always win out against age. As such the best advice is to jump in feet first, like the first house party of a new semester.

Review: Having displayed a somewhat wayward and scattershot approach of late, 'Human Performance' is where Parquet Courts go right back to hitting the bullseye in extremis, using their infectious songcraft and rough-hewn charm on this collection of skewed and anthemic ditties to deliver a cocktail of equal parts mischief and malice, pop melody and DIY punk. Wry lyrical insights, incisive guitar hooks and omnipresent joie-de-vivre coalesce to provide further evidence that this Brooklyn outfit - beyond being a Pavement for millennials - are currently about as close as one can get to a new generation of indie-rock royalty.

Review: Having displayed a somewhat wayward and scattershot approach of late, 'Human Performance' is where Parquet Courts go right back to hitting the bullseye in extremis, using their infectious songcraft and rough-hewn charm on this collection of skewed and anthemic ditties to deliver a cocktail of equal parts mischief and malice, pop melody and DIY punk. Wry lyrical insights, incisive guitar hooks and omnipresent joie-de-vivre coalesce to provide further evidence that this Brooklyn outfit - beyond being a Pavement for millennials - are currently about as close as one can get to a new generation of indie-rock royalty.

Review: This Brooklyn troupe have hammered out a disconcerting amount of releases in a relatively short space of time, and Monastic Living marks another diversion in this eternally ornery and sarcastic outfit's wayward path - largely instrumental, it could be construed as obtuse and difficult in the extreme, or mererly a test of how far this band's fans are prepared to go the distance with them, yet these minimal and skeletal constructions. Yet it could also be the most uncompromising piece of work the prolific and talented bunch have yet produced, fearlessly delving into unchartered territory. Whichever it is, one thing is for sure, and that's that following Parquet Courts will never be dull of predictable.

Review: The much-loved New York City outfit may have made their name with a certain deshabille roughness and scruffy garage-dwelling charm, yet they're far from slackers, as this third release in under a year (including one under the Parkay Quarts name) testifies. This killer live document, cut using the trademark direct-to-acetate technique that Jack White's Third Man employ, catches them at their most raw and earthy. Featuring numerous tunes from their much-heralded 'Sunbathing Animal' opus, it's proof that this band's eccentric, Pavement-esque invention is more than matched by their gnarly live power.

Review: The third album by the endearingly scrappy garage-bound Brooklynites shows them expanding somewhat on their original template, which took a gnarled and irascible racket and tempered it with Pavement-style eccentricities and freewheeling pop sass. "Sunbathing Animals", which is a full quarter-hour longer than their last effort, sets their stall out as a contemporary rock band whose lyrical sleight-of-hand, melodic suss and wry charm marks them out as a band worth taking seriously as more than another bunch of angry young men. Spiky as ever, yet with skill and strength in depth previously unsuspected, Parquet Courts are slackers to be reckoned with.