Song of the Day: Parquet Courts - Borrowed Time

Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJs think you should hear. Today’s song, featured on the Morning Show with John Richards, is “Borrowed Time” by Parquet Courts from the 2013 album Light Up Gold on What's Your Rupture?.

Parquet Courts - Borrowed Time (MP3)

Parquet Courts may be based in Brooklyn, but they're not a "Brooklyn band" by any means. They're sincere, energetic, and not actually from Brooklyn. Led by singer/guitarists Austin Brown and Andrew Savage, the Texas-bred quartet rips through economic tunes that fall somewhere in between Pavement's subtly melodic lo-fi and Wire's insistent, breakneck post-punk. After releasing a cassette-only release in 2011, the band released their debut album, Light Up Gold, last August before What's Your Rupture? picked it up for a wider release earlier this year. The lead single from Light Up Gold the short and sweet "Borrowed Time" finds the band cramming as many hooks as they can into only 152 (borrowed?) seconds. Starting with a quick four-count, the band dives head-first into the song, unleashing riff after riff while covering a number of lyrical bases, including nostalgia, ennui, and everything else involved in being in your twenties. It's a daunting task to approach these topics - many have tried, Japandroids are one of the few who have succeeded - but twelve shouts of the chorus lyric, two false stops, and one sorta-but-not-really a guitar solo, you get the feeling that Parquet Courts might have come a little bit closer to figuring out how to survive their roaring twenties and sleep at night. (Or at least until the next show with free beer.)

Parquet Courts will be part of KEXP's broadcast this week from Mellow Johnny's Bike Shop in Austin during SXSW. Tune into KEXP at 4 p.m. on Saturday, March 16th to hear the band play live and check out the rest of our broadcast lineup here. They are also in the midst of an extensive tour behind Light Up Gold that goes on until August (so far). You can see them here in Seattle during a two-night stand at Neumos on June 13th and 14th. Get tickets and more info about those shows here and can keep up with the band on their blog. For now, here they are performing "Master of My Craft" and "Borrowed Time" live on WNYC earlier this year: