ParquetSparkles & Mud
ABOUT THE RELEASE
“What we emphasize is not what we do, but when we do it.”
In Parquet‘s music, indeed, everything is a matter of timing: the moment when the sound strikes the listener’s heart, the moment when the element of surprise makes them lose their footing, the moment when the rhythm catches them at the edge of the abyss before they get lost.
Since its inception, the project has aimed to provide a personal interpretation of electronic music, reconnecting with a certain physical experience of sound—the timeless trance that governs much of what exists outside of commercial music. While Parquet is a true war machine in concert, proven in various contexts, it truly excels in the middle of the night, on the techno battlefield, when guitars and drums play the role of surprise elements for the ravers.
Taking Parquet music out of its relationship with the audience, its physical presence on a dance floor, was quite a challenge. The group took it on by seeking to transcend the pursuit of virtuosity and the dictatorship of pure technical execution. Sliced to the core, Parquet’s stems act on the record like the waves of a tsunami. If they appear to decrease in intensity, it is only to create ruptures, breaks that precede the explosion. Like a sonic monster that leads to ecstasy.
A first version of the album, recorded in 2019, was lost during a computer theft. The band, being philosophical, set out to create a new version of their album, accepting the idea that not everything can be controlled. It is this sense of letting go that permeates the tracks of this album. Far from showcasing technical prowess or even a form of devotion to analog, the components of these songs seem to live their own lives, assembling and colliding in an almost mystical relationship, where the musicians are both conductors and toys of the music they create.
Far from being a monolith of power, this new Parquet album is, above all, a story of convolutions and tremors. It transitions from organic techno infused with noise rock (Brute) to arid and mathematical avant-rock (Mud), from electronic music tinged with industrial and kraut influences (Tahiti) to a minimal noise epic (Puppet). However, it would be a shame to consume this album in arbitrarily divided fragments, as it is as a total and compact sonic object that it fulfills all its promises and delivers all the slightly mad secrets hidden within its interstices.
The ground gives way beneath your feet, then it becomes as hard as concrete. The walls melt, draw closer, then they disappear. The scene turns liquid, and you can no longer distinguish the musicians’ arms from their instruments. Our bodies are reduced to a primal state. This experience has nothing to do with synthetic drugs or a sense of impending death. The band Parquet is performing on stage. A stack of minimal motifs, rhythmic patterns, bursts of guitars, and synthesizers. In this in-between world, we lose our footing, we surrender. The dizziness is short-lived because deep down, she is there, showing us the light. The drums are at the center of this ephemeral architecture that adds and removes elements in the group’s long hypnotic pieces. Parquet is a world of paradoxes, a labyrinth we navigate at high speed, the perpetual climax.
Founded in 2014 by drummer Sébastien Brun, the band fully embraces the fantasy of playing techno music with instruments. Iconoclastic by nature, the group distinguishes itself through its captivating ability.
“The material is raw, demanding, rough, electric, framed within an electronic and dance aesthetic, but it could be something entirely different. I see the arrival of different musical elements as the arrival of characters at the opera. With preparation, suspense, and emphasis. The ambition is to keep the listener always alert while surrendering,” explains Sébastien Brun, confirming that Parquet music is more about sensation than dogma, while claiming a certain narrative form, far from any abstract and futile over-conceptualization.
COVER
