Parquet Courts announce new album Sympathy For Life

New York clubs, Primal Scream and Pink Floyd were the inspirations for Parquet Courts.

Parquet Courts have set their new album Sympathy For Life for release on October 22nd.

The follow-up to 2018’s Wide Awake! was built largely from improvised jams in the company of Rodaidh McDonald and John Parish.

“Wide Awake! was a record you could put on at a party,” says Austin Brown. “Sympathy For Life is influenced by the party itself.”

“Historically, some amazing rock records have been made from mingling in dance music culture – from Talking Heads to Screamadelica.”

“Our goal was to bring that into our own music. Each of us, in our personal lives, has been going to more dance parties. Or rather, we were pre-pandemic, which is when this record was made.”

The first single is album opener Walking At A Downtown Pace, released with a video directed by Daniel Arnold whose expertise in New York street photography has helped to present the band’s vision of the city, ‘from the vantage point of someone busily hurrying through it’.

“That’s what life can be like here; a world of constant motion surrounds you while you’re just walking toward where you need to be,” A Savage explains. “There’s a lot of beauty that can be missed, and it wasn’t until the streets were virtually empty that I did miss it.

“The song was written before all quarantine, but eerily enough the lyrics echo that longing. Now the city is back and, so it seems, are Parquet Courts.”

Sympathy For Life tracklist:

Walking At A Downtown Pace
Black Widow Spider
Marathon of Anger
Just Shadows
Plant Life
Application Apparatus
Homo Sapien
Sympathy For Life
Zoom Out
Trullo
Pulcinella