My introduction to Australian singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett was her 2013 combined short releases, The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas, a raw, quirky selection of songs packed with great hooks.
On her proper debut, Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit, Barnett makes the most of mundane subjects set to a little slicker production but still delivered in her signature deadpan. And there are plenty of hooks. Even as the guitars rise on tracks like the blistering, Pedestrian at Best, the pitch of Barnett’s vocals hardly ever moves. The songs often are set to seemingly innocuous or routine events (swimming, house hunting, shopping). It’s not exactly an album about nothing but it is pretty darn mundane albeit very enjoyable.
“I never write songs about anything wildly exciting,” she told the New York Times recently. “They’re just everyday things. It just really interests me, those tiny little moments that could easily pass you by.”
It’s those little moments that Barnett captures so well.
Released this week, this is a highly recommended album. Catch Barnett at Chicago’s Pitchfork fest in July.
All the Young Punks 