Boussoles elles & eux Fasten your seatbelts The highly anticipated debut album by Parcels, a band of young Australians who’ve made it big in Europe, has finally been released. High-flying retro electro sound. They’re absolutely thrilled that Air France magazine has found themselves in a studio with the silver-handed robots come to meet them. On the sleeve of their first album, the five to produce their single “Overnight,” released in 2017, and Australians who make up the group Parcels pose on the steps on stage as the group opening for Phoenix. They were barely of a plane, and all the singles released since the spring 20 years old and yet they were already being tagged as one have been accompanied by retro imagery featuring piles of the most phenomenal hit machines of the decade. Songs of luggage and the interiors of aircraft cabins. “It was the best like “Comedown,” “Withorwithout” and “Bemyself” are imme- way of showing what the band’s life has been like for the past diately recognizable for their elided words, but there’s nothing four years,” explains Jules Crommelin, guitarist and captain missing in their sound. They eventually landed in Berlin—“for of this vessel that set sail from Byron Bay in 2014 and has since financial reasons, and also because it’s the city that has the best been round the world several times. energy for us,” says keyboard player Louie Swain. They started out as five kids who went to the same high school Parcels worked on their long-awaited album for several and listened to the same records picked out from their months—despite its youth the group risked disappearing parents’ collection. Obsessed in particular with Steely Dan, off the radar because its launch had been delayed for so long. the duo from New York who migrated to LA and helped “We knew that we’d been suddenly thrust into the limelight to shape the funky sound of California pop in the 1970s, and that those who’d been following us for four years might these adolescents who also dabbled in surf music steered get tired of waiting,” reflects Crommelin, “but it still needed these influences in the direction of modern electro, following a lot of work to produce the album we wanted to make.” in the wake of Daft Punk and Phoenix. Indeed, France was Called simply Parcels, this irresistible collection of 11 vibrant the first country to appreciate this breath of fresh air songs, with closing credits recited by the Berlin rapper and showcase their pulsating repertoire through the hipster Dean Dawson, has put the group center stage again—both label Kitsuné, enabling them to link up with their heroes. “The on the dance floor and off. Paradoxically, their sunny Beach album Random Access Memories is a touchstone for us,” Boy harmonies, guitar sounds reminiscent of Chic and explains bass player Noah Hill. “As for Phoenix, we modeled keyboards straight out of the smooth yacht rock of the 1970s ourselves on them when we formed the group.” At the speed form the perfect soundtrack for contemporary travel. Whether of sound, and as if by some strange time zone magic, Parcels stationary or in full flight. 80 tluaneH eniotnA ©