There’s no one better at offering up joy than Parcels. It’s in the ethos of the band, and has been since the beginning. From the winding grooves of their eponymous debut album to their much-praised, effervescent live shows to the innovative prowess of ‘Day/Night’, they have proven time and time again that they will deliver excitement and elation in droves. Now, with their third album, ‘LOVED’, they take that uplifting quality their music has always had and dial it up to maximum. Celebratory, blissful, and startlingly tender, ‘LOVED’ is an enchanting listen.
The album was initially born from a unique concept in the world of Parcels: a break. Pausing for the first time properly since they formed in 2014, the Australian five-piece had some time to take stock, catch their breath, and stretch their limbs. “It was something we didn’t realise we were going to do until the year started, and we realised we had been going non-stop since we started the band,” explains Louie Swain, the band’s keyboardist. “It was really great. We all went off on our own and did some individual pursuits. I started a community radio station here in Berlin, Toto started a house music label. The other three were writing heaps of songs, but not with Parcels in mind. It was a really important year for us, but I think what we learnt from it was to try and structure years so we don’t have to take a year off after them.”
Having that much-needed time to explore other pastures and simply relax allowed Louie, along with bandmates Jules Crommelin, Patrick Hetherington, Noah Hill and Anatole ‘Toto’ Serret, to return rejuvenated and ready for album three. Reminded of their love of creating together, the immediate core of the project was pleasure.
“It reaffirmed for us the magic that we do feel when we get in a room together and make music,” Louie recalls. “We had all been doing projects with other people, and there’s something that just locks in. We’ve played together for so long. I can’t remember the first time we were all back in a room together, but I think we were in Mexico in a studio and just the feeling…the groove locks in a way that comes through so many years of playing together.”
With that irreplicable musical chemistry intact, they set to work on crafting their third record. Chasing that feeling across the world, the band found themselves in studios in their hometown of Byron Bay, Sydney, Oaxaca, Mexico City and Berlin, where much of their career has centred them so far. With such vastly different environments feeding into their creative process, they had the tools to craft something more expansive than ever.
“We were trying to be inspired by the travel we were doing,” says Louie. “Now, we’re split up around the world, with Noah and Jules living in Australia, so we have to meet up in new places to record. Rather than picking a location based on how good the studio is, or how well we know the people there, it felt exciting to work with whatever was there where we were. It came with a new confidence for us, having recorded in quite a few studios now, that we can get into any type of studio and make something good from it. It feels more exciting for us to use whatever’s there and play to the studio rather than come in trying to shape a sound.”
“We had to keep coming back to joy”
They stopped bringing their own instruments, choosing instead to experiment with whatever was available to them in a bid to create something truly unique. Then came the challenge of transforming that into something that sounded distinctly Parcels. More exploratory than ever, the excitement of being curious and creative became foundational for ‘LOVED’ and allowed them to divert from the familiar.
“There was one great studio in Sydney that we did synths at,” remembers Louie. “The guy just had this incredible array of vintage drum machines that he had linked all together. You could never use this guy’s studio without him being there and really guiding you through it all, because it was so deep and technical. We had some really fun sessions playing the tracks through all his racks of drum machines and getting weird beats out of them.”
With so many musical Aladdin’s caves to explore, the album took on a worldly tone. Each track is like a postcard from a different place. Yet, instead of wishing you were here, they beckon you to join them as they take joy and pleasure in uncovering the hidden secrets of each new location. From the opening track, ‘Tobeloved’, you’re immediately placed in the thick of it. Laughter and chatter are as integral as any guitar lines or percussion, a result of the band favouring the less polished edits of the track and instead creating something immersive and palpable.
“We did these vocal takes across the whole album where all of us were in the room together around one mic, layering backup vocals the whole time. Doing that over and over again, we were getting into a weird headspace of making each other laugh and joking around a lot. Those tracks stayed on the recording for such a long time through the process that when it came time to clean them up, it felt like the energy had gone. The energy of the track, in a lot of ways, was being in the studio with us as we were kind of losing our minds. It’s a nice memory for us as well in the end.”
Fun was at the crux of it. Rather than conforming to any specific ideas, it was crucially important to just hone in on whatever felt new, exciting, and authentic. On the jubilant ‘Thinkaboutit’, they sing, “If I think about it, I’ll never do,” and it’s a phrase that reverberates through ‘LOVED’. ‘Day/Night’ was intricately thoughtful, a conceptual double album that saw the band at their most ambitious. Here, they loosen their grip on careful consideration and are instead more willing to sit with a feeling and really hold onto it, letting everything else fall away. It’s far more relaxed.
“The early demos had a lot of acoustic guitars, and more of this 90s rock flavour to a lot of it that we didn’t really have much of before,” says Louie. “They were more like rock songs, or songwriter, folky, pop tracks, which felt fresh for us because the last album, we were thinking of this big, operatic, orchestra-driven thing. Before that, we were imagining very much 70s disco, and it was a lot more about the grooves and the danceability of it. I don’t know if it was a shift in sound, but it was a shift in mentality. It was just like, let’s make a bunch of songs and think as little as possible about it. We would try to have fun in the studios, and I think you can hear that in the recordings that came out.”
Elements of those earlier versions of Parcels are, of course, still embedded in ‘LOVED’. There are innate parts of Parcels that will never change: the tightness of their instrumentals, the gorgeous harmonies that are completely idiosyncratic to them. ‘Ifyoucall’ and ‘Leaveyourlove’ practically beg to be danced to, in the same vein as much of the band’s debut did. That cinematic quality of ‘Day/Night’ is still prevalent, just in a very different manner. It’s the soundtrack to celebration, the kind of tracks that fill you with life and vivacity. ‘LOVED’ is a party, and the guest list is open to all who feel inclined to join.
“Because the last one was so varied, and went in all these different directions, a consistency of mood felt like a nice thing to hold onto,” explains Louie. “Even though it was really tempting to explore all these different things, because that’s what we tend to do when we get together, we had to keep coming back to the fact we wanted it to feel like a record you could play on a road trip or at a festival or something, in a more uplifting situation.”
Of course, there are still moments of vulnerability, but amidst the vibrant sonics of the album, they are celebrated too, as if to express gratitude for the capacity to feel the full scope of those emotions. Often, those moments are carefully woven into deceptively optimistic soundscapes. You’d be forgiven for thinking ‘Yougotmefeeling’ was a moment of sheer joy, but on closer inspection, those lyrics are less than sunny. At other times, the tenderness and intimacy come in the vocal delivery: ‘Summerinlove’ has a striking sincerity to it that stops you in your tracks and makes those words hit home.
“I think we’ve had trouble within the band of how to approach that vulnerability,” Louie notes. “Pat, Jules and Noah are incredibly sensitive people who write these songs that reveal a lot about themselves, but I think we’re getting more comfortable about approaching that as a group and working out how to express that.”
With over ten years as a band now under their belt, there’s a level of understanding and appreciation for one another that is inevitable. In fact, one of the most sentimental and vulnerable moments comes in the album’s closer, ‘Iwannabeyourlightagain’, which often feels like an ode to being in a band itself. Gorgeously sprawling across five minutes, it weaves gentle, nostalgic recollections of the band’s history with glimmering keys and steady percussion. It’s a sonic tapestry of the band’s story so far that would leave even the most stoic listener misty-eyed.
“It’s really stitched together from almost every studio we were in, and you can hear all the different sound worlds that we go through. Pat brought it in quite late to the sessions. He’d had the demo for a long time, and we’d heard it, but he’d edited it in this new way that was like a collage of us. We just had that moment of listening together where it was so special.”
There’s something inherently romantic and magical about being in a band and sharing a journey across over a decade as Parcels have. It’s the long-standing adoration and warmth of that which is central to ‘LOVED’. It commemorates each iteration of them that has existed and everything they have learnt along the way. Everything they’ve achieved, and the emotions that have been wrought upon them, is tied up in this record.
“I don’t think we realised it was that until it was finished,” Louie concludes. “It almost did feel a little bit self-referential, a lot of the new album. When we did the live albums and the ‘Day/Night’ album, it was always trying not to be ourselves. It felt like this album could just sound like us and what we’ve done so far as a way to pivot into the future. I think there was a confidence that came with this album, it was kind of like, yeah, we really know how to do this now, it’s been ten years, and we can make this happen.”
‘LOVED’ is the sound of a chapter closing, brimming with the sparkling ebullience of a band capturing a moment in time in vivid colour. With their third record, Parcels grasp onto the joy and passion that were initially so key to them as a band, and they refuse to let go.
Parcels' album 'Loved' is out now.
