Parquet Courts Tickets

Just as happy noodling away on a church organ as they are screaming over an experimental feedback solo, Parquet Courts are nothing if not complicated. Straddling everything from art-punk and folk-rock to hardcore and funk, the band take pride in building up their influences and tearing them back down again as they carve their own path through the backroads of the indie rock scene.

Formed somewhere between a Texas dorm room and a Brooklyn basement by Andrew Savage, Austin Brown, Sean Yeaton and Max Savage, Parquet Courts put out their raw debut 2011 album, American Specialties, on a limited-run cassette. Deadpanning punk poetry over discordant noise walls, violent tempo shifts and lo-fi slacker guitars, their first underground record planted roots that would go on to feed the band’s evolving sound over the next six albums.

2012’s more widely-distributed Light Up Gold quickly earning Parquet Courts a reputation as one of the most exciting and innovative names on the ascendancy – with early reviews cramming in comparisons to everyone from Pavement and Sonic Youth to Bob Dylan and The Fall. Riding the crest of their own wave through two years of constant touring, Parquet Courts signed with Rough Trade for their third album, 2014’s Sunbathing Animal, and found themselves topping European festival bills and getting serious international airtime. 

More refined than their earlier work, Sunbathing Animal still felt spontaneous: a mix of high-energy stoner blues and late-night indie ballads ran through with a sense of playfulness, urgency and a love/hate relationship with their own musical heroes. With far too many ideas for one album, half of the record seemed to spill over onto Content Nausea (released just a few months later under the name ‘Parkay Quarts’) – a four-track record that left room for a bit more experimentation with synths, social commentary and Southern-fried country-rock.

Stepping even further into the left-field for the minimalist instrumental riffs on 2015’s improv EP, Monastic Living, Parquet Courts refocused themselves in 2016 with Human Performance – arguably their most ambitious and mature album to date. Just as energetic as their earlier work, Human Performance adds layers of nuance to the band’s sound as they channel The Velvet Underground through noisy, structured art-pop and sprawling psychedelic Americana.  

Partnering with Italian composer Daniele Luppi on 2017’s Milano, Parquet Courts joined Karen O to help Luppi steer back through his memories of 1980’s Milan – adding snark and strut to bubblegum pop. The following year saw another collaboration as they worked with producer Danger Mouse on Wide Awake! – adding funk, dance and new wave rhythms to their evolving garage sound. As much a treatise on social unrest as a call to arms (and as much a mardi gras party as a mosh pit) Wide Awake! saw Parquet Courts embracing the most of everything, even optimism. 

2021’s Sympathy For Life found the band edging closer to the middle of the dancefloor even as they start pulling away again. Built largely from improvised jams, inspired by New York clubs, Primal Scream and Pink Floyd, and produced in league with Rodaidh McDonald (The XX, Hot Chip, David Byrne), Sympathy For Life led the band’s welcome return to live music after a long lockdown hiatus.

In September 2021, Parquet Courts announced a new UK tour for June 2022.