Parquet Courts has released a new video for their title-track off of their album Human Performance, which released earlier this year.
The “Human Performance” video is directed by Phil Collins and it is all sorts of strange (in a great way). The video features the band performing their song via cartoonish puppet’s who have very strange human-like qualities, which makes the video seem like yes, a human performance. The video is NSFW (don’t let the beginning fool you), because it includes 3 middle-aged puppets partaking in spanking, orgies, and other actions that are “totally” normal. It also features a main puppet performer and even a random donkey puppet is thrown in.
Phil Collins, the English visual artist and Turner Prize nominee, was the one who conceived this totally bizarre video. “A puppet is a complex beast, animated by a human but which also, conversely, brings the puppeteer to life,” Collins said. “I thought this kind of dialectics could work well with Andrew’s lyrics, and also found it funny to give starring roles to puppets in a track called ‘Human Performance”.
Parquet Courts frontman Andrew Savage talked about the video in an interview with Purple via Paste magazine, “I was focusing on the malfunctions of my own humanity, in relation to a specific series of events in my life, which could not be ignored. It’s meant to be a bit self-evident by the way puppets are used in the video. As I see it, humanity is something that’s partly performed and partly instinctual. Like puppets, we sometimes are controlled by parts of ourselves that we never really become acquainted with, but are always there. This song is me confronting that shadow”.
Parquet Courts has released 5 albums since their formation back in 2010, and Human Performance has been highly acclaimed since it released earlier this year. The new video comes as a reminder to fans and more on just how good the “Human Performance” track is. The title track is frontman and writer Andrew Savage’s best work since his former bands days and portrays the garage-like, under the influence feel that Parquet Courts has been so successful with for over 5 years. Check out the video below and also check the dates of Parquet Courts October tour below.
Parquet Courts video for “Human Performance”:
Parquet Courts October Tour Dates:
10/10 Manchester, Academy
10/11 London, Forum
10/12 Brighton, Old Market
10/15 Groningen, Vera
10/17 Cologne, Gebäude
10/18 Berlin, SO 36
10/19 Prague, TBA
10/20 Munich, Storm
10/23 Milan, BKO
10/25 Zurich, Rote Fabrik
10/26 Strasbourg, La Laitiere
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