Parquet Courts

Art-punk rebels Parquet Courts promise only one constant: unpredictability. The Brooklyn-via-Texas quartet has kept indie fans on their toes since dropping 2012’s scrappy, sharp-witted, post-punk-driven album Light Up Gold, a proper follow-up to their cassette-only 2011 debut, American Specialties. Led by the powerhouse songwriting duo of Andrew Savage and Austin Brown, and rounded out by bassist Sean Yeaton and drummer Max Savage, the band has never stuck to a script. “We’ve created our own language and universe throughout our music,” Austin Brown told Apple Music—and they’ve done so at a prolific pace. In their first decade, Parquet Courts released eight albums and two EPs, all notably raw and ramshackle, but defiantly different from one another. They’ve effortlessly shapeshifted into wily experimentalists—flexing their melodic sensibilities on 2016’s avant-pop stunner Human Performance, opening their door to producer Daniele Luppi for 2017’s jazz-touched, Karen O-featuring Milano and Danger Mouse for 2018’s dance-punk groover Wide Awake!, before taking inspiration from NYC’s dance underground for 2021’s funk-fueled celebration Sympathy for Life.