The work of songwriter and composer Ethan T. Parcell could hardly be more diverse. Recording under his own name, moniker The World Without Parking Lots and Focus Group LLC/Solutions, Parcell’s output has traversed the gamut from hushed solo folk to free jazz with a thirteen-piece orchestra, and his use of narrative has been similarly inventive. From the personal dispatches of Seventh Song Counts the Engines (what we called “bummed out bedroom folk songs for the twenty-first century”) to bona fide operas, and then the startlingly ambitious and evocative hybrid narrative that was The New County Choruses, Parcell has pushed the boundaries of songwriting as far as anyone within the contemporary scene.
But Parcell’s experimentation always remains rooted in a sense of emotional honesty, and for all his innovation, it is this commitment to sincerity and modesty which shines as the most notable feature. Boundary pushing not as some search for novelty or exercise in aesthetic formulation, but a way to more fully communicate what lies at the heart of the work. A deep, varied engagement with ideas of sincerity and humbleness which stands as proof that within compassion lies genuine artistic and political utility.
Within this wider mission, releases under the The World Without Parking Lots moniker have tended to lean toward the intimate, straightforward folk end of Parcell’s body of work. Songs more overtly personal which position themselves alongside acts like Mount Eerie or Talons’. The trend continues on You’ll Have To Take My Word For It, a brand new TWWPL album out next month on Dear Life Records featuring intimate, domestic songs which are characteristically humane.
Today we have the honour of sharing the lead single and album opener, ‘Rotten Bouquet ’22’. It’s track of marbled sentiments in which vulnerability is matched by quiet assurance, and disbelief is leavened by a slow-dawning wisdom. A sense of understanding which builds gradually but builds nonetheless. “Would you believe it’s only just become clear?” as Parcell sings in the song’s final verse, “I need a lot of people and a handful of people need me.”
I’m not tired
at least not in that way
I’ll hang it upside down
my rotten bouquet
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The song comes complete with a video by Parcell himself which you can check out below:
We also took the opportunity to ask Parcell a few questions, so read on below to hear more about intentions behind The World Without Parking Lots, his sources of inspiration and the impossibility of Cuphead.
Hi Ethan, thanks so much for speaking with us and congratulations on You’ll Have to Take My Word For It. Does the experience of releasing music change from record to record?
Thank you and thank YOU for speaking.
Short answer: on the surface, it’s basically the same, same pacing, same second-guessing, ebbs and flows of confidence, and then same rush of letting go, processing and moving on. Internally, it’s definitely different just in the sense that I’m in a different place in life, creatively and otherwise.
So I suppose the experience does definitely change from record to record for me – mostly in the sense that my life and worldview keeps changing a little. On the purely musical side of things: my relationship to the medium is always developing a little further. I always feel like a goof saying it, but I really believe in the idea of recorded music – it doesn’t feel like I’m lacking anything by making an album of songs, that is (somewhat arbitrarily) typical LP length. What can I say, I love it – I love records as they exist as cultural artifacts and sometimes feel like I have a slow and steady decrease in interest in pushing the medium any further or anything. My relationship to performing has something to do with it, I’m sure – I’m less interested in this band existing as a performing entity as I am making the record.
Anyway, more importantly, things feel different now for personal non-musical reasons too- things just look and feel different since my last public releases: I’ve gotten married, my priorities and work are different, my habits and day-to-day concerns.
The album sits at the simpler, solo folk end of your stylistic spectrum, slotting alongside previous World Without Parking Lots releases. Could you talk a little about the thematic and/or aesthetic qualities which mark something as a WWPL release, as opposed to something for your collaborations or to be released as Ethan T. Parcell?
The main unifying thought behind The World Without Parking Lots is that I sort of haphazardly declared to myself a long time ago that I would use this name when I’m using a recording project to sort of mark time in my life. No matter my musical predilections or style signifiers, I thought it would be interesting to sort of deal with the consequences of my taste and ideas changing through every iteration of the band being sonically pretty disparate from the next. Our first release technically turned 10 years old last year, but at that point The World Without Parking Lots was a sort of youthful free jazz orchestra? I was 19, I was enamored (still am) with Charlie Haden’s Liberation Music Orchestra, and the European large ensembles in that vein, like Globe Unity and Instant Composer’s Pool. Needless to say, I’m not exactly itching for anyone to check that music out, but I’m all-in-all glad that it is documented and under the same umbrella.
The Focus Group LLC/Solutions releases, and the things under my given name have some sort of specific narrative or conceptual thrust to them that feel less diaristic, and in turn a little less tethered to the particulars of my actual life. With WWPL, I felt like I needed to mark time with what was on my mind musically and textually, so it ended up as another singing album. Sometimes singing feels best – who knows what it will be next.
I definitely didn’t know it at the time, but I’m constantly mentioning the artist/critic David Antin, who has a book and essay called “Radical Coherency” that helped me understand my own urge to do this a little better – when you explode all possible context, it helps to realize how inherently linked everything is, especially everything you can make as just one person with one body.
Your bio lists “smallness, hospitality, and union” as themes central to your work, and I wondered if you could expand a little on how these manifest on the new record? There’s a kind of humbleness to it, a domesticity?
Of those three things, smallness is always the one that feels like an ongoing quest. I think it’s different than being specific, or making art about particular things – “small” is something else, and I still have a hard time articulating it. Sometimes it definitely manifests how you’re suggesting – humility, domesticity. Most of these songs are definitely swimming in that water. I think I became interested in spoken text years ago in Focus Group LLC because it seemed smaller than singing (I’m not sure it actually is).
I think in general, my ambitions to be small and hospitable also have to do with my working methods – whether an orchestra, or a band of my closest people I always want make sure the working environment and feeling is hospitable and unified. My hope is that the concerns that motivate my methods also show up audibly in the work. This time around, it resulted in the delight of just writing down the personnel on the album – my brothers, my spouse and my oldest friend.
Dear Life is a gem of a label. How did you end up working with them this time around?
I love that you asked this because the answer is literally YOU. Michael Cormier-O’Leary reached out a couple summers ago after hearing Plays from Operas Alone, thanks to your write-up on it. Of course, it’s a small world, I love Friendship (which Michael is in) and had seen them play here in Chicago a few months before that, and adore so much of the music coming out from Dear Life right now. It’s been a treat having them alongside.
Where would you position work within the contemporary music scene? Are there any artists (musical or otherwise) you particularly admire or see yourself in conversation with?
I’m honestly not sure – I really am inspired by my most immediate peers, my longest musical and personal relationships are with Alec Watson, whose music is DPCD and Kenan Serenbetz. The volleying of support we do for each other has really helped us all individuate our own creativity in a way that I’m always grateful for – so I suppose we are literally always “in conversation,” but that’s what comes to mind first.
Otherwise, I’m always in admiration of those taking big swings for the love of the game. Or better yet, I find myself new inspiration and admiration by paying attention to the various non-all-consuming ways people seem to fit their music-making into their broader life as people. I suppose that’s what has been on my mind the most – where does this fit in to everything else? At this particular moment I’m excited whenever Jim O’Rourke puts out another Steamroom release, Cyrus Pireh changed my life years ago and has a new one coming out soon with a perfect title. George Lewis’ book on the AACM shifted things around a lot in me in this regard too. I teach and find a lot of inspiration in that work, so I hope to continue to be in conversation with people in that realm too.
Do you have any idea where the future leads in terms of your music?
More of it, God willing! This Summer here in Chicago we are fully staging the second Focus Group opera, Wasted Light for the first time ever, which I’m very excited about. Otherwise, lots of ideas and projects are in the pipeline but I’m taking my time and making sure it all stays fun.
Finally, for a bit of fun, ‘First and Last Name’ references a final boss and it has me curious. What’s the toughest boss you’ve encountered (from a video game or otherwise)?
Oh man how exciting to be asked. To be honest, I had some collegial relationships that seemed absolutely impossible at the time of writing, though I definitely also had Earthbound on the brain. I’ve accepted within myself that I will never reach the end of Cuphead, though I have also started Disco Elysium recently – which might not have a final boss besides my own psyche, which rings pretty true.
You’ll Have To Take My Word For It is out on the 27th May via Dear Life Records and you can pre-order it now.
