Courtney Barnett

I waxed poetically - manically, even - about Courtney Barnett's "The Double EP: A Sea Of Split Peas" back in November of 2013 - penning one of my best lines, in "...This girl can write, right?"  I was then blown away by her gig last year at the Bootleg Theater - awestruck by the intensity of her live performance and the unleashing of her inner rock demon -  and since her debut album, "Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit" landed (oh quiet, bleating credit card), I've basically played it to death...

Objective this post 'aint.

Let's start by stating that all - and I mean ALL - of those wry observations of the minutia of life, the emphasis of the extraordinariness of the mundane, the attention to detail - above all the delightful word-smithery - that made "The Double EP" one of the outstanding albums of 2013 are here in buckets... and that inner rock goddess makes a more than welcome return...

And if to reinforce this image, the opening track - over a chugging the sixties pub-rock beat - "Elevator operator" -  offers an almost forensic insight of the song's twenty-something protagonist, who stuck in a dead-end job, bunks off work and dreams of instead of riding trams, riding the ups and downs of the elevator. There's also come inspired word-trickery - as we've come to expect from this Aussie poet - "I'm not suicidal, just idling insignificantly."

And there's a glorious fuzzy carpet of discordant, fed-back grungy guitar that really complements Courtney's jumbled, torn thoughts and critical self-analysis as she spits out lyrics like bullets during "Pedestrian at best" - "I like you despise you admire you..." It's another example of a song where there's an unfeasibly large number of words crammed into three-odd minutes. Released as a single, the song's been reviewed a million times. I don't intend to be the millionth and first, I'll just content myself with the video, below:

But "Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit" is more than just rhyming couplets and sharp lyrics over pounding rawk and roll, "An illustration of loneliness (sleepless in New York)" sees Courtney fighting insomnia in a strange apartment - the wry observations and self-deprecating witticisms are there in spades, but there's that tinge of sadness when distance separates loved ones, as her voice sighs... "I'm thinking of you too..." May be it's just me, but I'm hooked on the more melancholy and introspective moments; the bluesy "Small poppies" with the dilemma of cutting the lawn (which length?) acting as a front to some serious loathing and withering putdowns; "Boxing Day blues" - the album's closer - and the magnificent "Depreston" (I've been waiting for this song ever since Courtney showcased it in her live set last year) - for this suburb of Melbourne you could quite easily substitute the charmless dormitory town in So Cal that I currently call home - I even live in a Californian bungalow (!) - but then the song's backstory hits home and you start to feel slightly uncomfortable...

 

But it is with "Kim's caravan" - at just shy of seven minutes - a magnificent opus of a track that's filled with a vista of guitars, a mesmerising bass line, that reveals the craft of Courtney's keen eye for detail. Taking a series of - at face value - loosely coupled vignettes and creating an introverted and introspective narrative on life, religion (I like the not so subtle gender reversal) and mankind's raping of the environment ("...The Great Barrier Reef, it ain't so great anymore, it's been rape beyond belief, the dredgers treat it like a whore...") Arguably the best song on an album full of stand-out songs.

Mankind's less than stellar stewardship of the planet gets another outing with "Dead Foxes", the upbeat rhythm contrasting with a progressively darker and moodier rant that logs road-kill and the realisation that culling cars rather than sharks would make a bigger impact on reducing the mortality rate.    

But Courtney also shines when recounting those all the minutia of life. There's the humorous tale of unrequited lust at the swimming pool that is "Aqua profounda!"; "Nobody really cares if you don't go to the party", a tale of the mind-numbing decisions that a 20-something slacker has to make (or invariably doesn't), and the poptastically psychedelic "Debbie downer", celebrating life's personal miseries while ignoring the advice of those who think they know best - admit it, we've all been there and secretly enjoyed it.

It's perhaps strange to think of "Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit" as Courtney Barnett's debut album - although I guess that factually it is - as far as this Pom is concerned it cements her position as one of the most innovative and arguably articulate artists of her age. So much so that sometimes I sit and think, and sometimes I just sit and listen to Courtney Barnett...

This girl can still write, right?

Year-list

Courtney Barnett Website
"Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit" (Mom and Pop), ( iTunes)