PARCELS ANNOUNCE NEW ALBUM LIVE VOL. 2
12 TRACKS INCLUDING 5 BRAND NEW SONGS ALL RECORDED LIVE BY THE BAND IN A CLUB IN PARIS
Tracklisting for Live Vol. 2 by Parcels is as follows:
SIDE A:
Shadow - from Le Palace, Paris
LordHennessy - from Le Palace, Paris
Ascend - from Le Palace, Paris
Recast - from Le Palace, Paris
SIDE B:
Reflex - from Le Palace, Paris
Iknowhowyoufeel - from Le Palace, Paris
Gamesofluck - from Le Palace, Paris
SIDE C:
Thefear - from Le Palace, Paris
Transcend - from Le Palace, Paris
SIDE D:
Entrance - from Le Palace, Paris
Lightenup - from Le Palace, Paris
React - from Le Palace, Paris
SEPTEMBER 6, 2023—Parcels have announced they will release their new album, Live Vol. 2, on October 20 via Because Music. It will be available digitally and on 180gsm double vinyl. Their new single and accompanying video, “Reflex,” taken from the forthcoming album, is out now.
Live Vol. 2 consists of twelve tracks, all recorded live by the band at a secret gig in Paris last year. The album includes 5 brand new & unreleased songs and follows up Parcels’ previous live album, Live Vol. 1, released in 2020, and a fan favorite for its display of the band’s distinguished musicianship and one-take performance.
But Live Vol. 2 sees the 5-piece—from Australia but based in Berlin—explore a new, club-inspired direction and sound, first trialed at their live shows last year.
Pat Hetherington of the band explains:
“I think a lot of things lead up to us making this record. Maybe we finally allowed ourselves to musically reflect our years in Berlin, moments in dark nightclubs flying high. We wanted to transport people into the club with us. Into the tense, faceless, euphoric world that can present itself in the right environment with the right repetition of the right chords and rhythms. Transcendence. When people stop thinking and just feel, just move. That deep escape.”
Beforehand we had many months touring the world, playing festivals and headline shows. Trying to make a crowd move. We felt a pull towards dance music so we started to sneak more of these long repetitious tangents into our set. On the last tour in Europe half of the set was a rave and the other half was the more traditional songs. We didn’t feel like we could go much further with it at our concerts though, especially the bigger ones. It was already divisive amongst our fans and for this dance stuff to work we really needed the whole crowd to take the trip with us and to let go. So we figured for ‘Live Vol. 2’, why not go all the way there! Here was an opportunity to rent a small club, to take away the name Parcels, and all the expectations that come with it, and just have a hot room full of people dancing. The previous year on the road was like training, learning to enter these long semi-improvised dance sections, learning how to communicate with each other and how to keep a crowd on their toes. Every night we honed in closer on new, rearranged versions of Parcels songs. ‘Live Vol. 2’ was where we would really let loose and drive it home. We would play for 2 hours, just dance music. And it was an experiment, a risk, because we’d never done it so purely before.”
Originally formed in Byron Bay, Australia, back in 2014, Parcels are presently based in Berlin, Germany, and the band’s line-up is keyboardist Louie Swain, keyboardist/guitarist Patrick Hetherington, bassist Noah Hill, drummer Anatole "Toto'' Serret, and guitarist Jules Crommelin.
In 2018, the band released their debut, self-titled album to widespread critical acclaim, with NME dubbing it “cheeky, timeless and devilishly catchy” in their 5-star review. Paste Magazine would write following the release that they “have the extremely rare talent of writing music that moves and grooves with ecstatic energy throughout every beat.”
Parcels’ second studio album is an ambitious record made up of two self-contained albums. The record was praised by the likes of Rolling Stone UK: “a brilliantly accomplished, genre-spanning record” and American Songwriter, who proclaimed it “reflects both a wide taste in music and a deep love for songwriting.” To date, they've amassed over 900 million streams, earned a Platinum and a Gold certification for their first two studio albums (respectively), have performed alongside French royalty Phoenix and Air, and released the single “Overnight,” which was produced by none other than Daft Punk.
Parcels are a formidable unit as a live band and completed their biggest tour to date last year, performing at headline shows and festivals across the globe, with sold-out stops at iconic US venues like New York City’s Brooklyn Steel and Los Angeles’s Hollywood Palladium, which Flaunt Magazine called “an enticing and unforgettable show.” The shows were hailed as “a dextrous show of live prowess” in NME’s 5-star review of their Islington Academy Show in London, adding: “you simply have to see this band live.”
All this is evident in Live Vol. 2, the new album by Parcels - out October 20th via Because Music. The new single, “Reflex,” is out now.