Wide Awake! (LP)

Wide Awake! is New York's Parquet Courts' fifth record since their formation eight years ago. It's also their most groundbreaking. It's an album about independence and individuality but also about collectivity and communitarianism. Love is at its center. There's also a freshness here, a breaking of new territory that's testament to the group's restless spirit.

In part, this may be attributed to the fact that it's produced by Brian Burton, better known as Danger Mouse, but it's also simply a triumph of their songwriter's art. The songs, written by Austin Brown and Andrew Savage are filled with their traditional punk rock passion, as well as a lyrical tenderness, but are elevated to even greater heights by the dynamic rhythmic propulsion of Max Savage (drums) and Sean Yeaton (bass).

The plan from the start was to introduce new musical ideas previously unexplored by the band. These were varied. For Brown, a few of the touchstones were Grace Jones, The Upsetters, Townes Van Zandt, Parliament and Augustus Pablo. For Savage though, the soundtrack to the sessions in Electric Lady Studios in New York and later at Sonic Ranch in Texas, was different.

"I found myself listening to a lot of '80s American punk," he explains, "I'm talking about Big Boys, Minutemen, The Dicks, Flipper. Bands that were no doubt punk but don't quite fit in. I've always loved the playfulness of Minutemen and Big Boys, and especially the way the latter mixed funk into their sound".