Privilege (Abridged) is the latest LP from Portland’s Parenthetical Girls, out now in the US via Marriage Records and released today in the UK and Europe via Splendour Records. Originally released as a five-part EP series between 2010-12, the extravagant outfit led by Zac Pennington condensed the original 21 songs from the five EP’s to a remastered and remixed 12-track album.
“Privilege retains the group’s signature ambitions-visceral intimacy, camp austerity, lurid eloquence-while confidently embracing the perfect pop pastiche their previous records only alluded to”, as the album’s blurb says. “Privilege is a cascade of grim particulars and gallows humour-an unflinching treatise on privilege, indiscretion, betrayal, sex and class politics, failure, and resignation.”

Last week Parenthetical Girls unveiled a video to accompany ‘A Note To Self’. Here’s what Zac Pennington said about the video:

“A winking homage to the works of performance artists like Vito Acconci, Marina Abramovic, Chris Burden, and Bas Jan Ader, “A Note To Self” uses obsolete, era-appropriate video technology to painstakingly recreate the awkward, incidental, and ridiculously fetishized aesthetics of late 60s, early 70s performance art documentation. It’s supposed to make you feel that way.”

Check it out below.