Courtney Barnett Has Re-emerged With New Music - But Is It Worth Your Time?

Sometimes, a break is called for. Possibly to give an artist a pause for breath, or equally maybe to give the audience a time to reflect, and begin longing for the next thing. For the Blundstoned Princess of Brunswick and environs, Courtney Barnett, this year has seen an almost deliberately lower profile, possibly to recover from that period where the world went double-mad-with-cheese for her. There’s still been room for special occasions – like, you’re not going to knock back singing with Patti Smith now are you? Or the chance to be part of a series of vinyl Split Singles between Court’s and consort Jen Cloher’s Milk! Records cottage industry and the Brisbane’s label of similar attitude, Bedroom Suck. So, a new Barnett tune. Well, kinda. How To Boil An Egg (Milk!) is a perfect title for the artist, but the tune in fact dates back to her early open-mic days, here recorded for the first time with herself singing and playing everything on it. There’s a slight country twang to it, and her usual eye that can make mundane minutiae so interesting. And don’t forget to flip said record over to hear the also damn good Blank Realm, who have a scruffy charm of their own. 

An altogether long disappearance might not have been on the cards for Fleet Foxes, but a couple of false starts, and front-fox Robin Pecknold eventually throwing up his hands and wandering off to get a college degree means it’s been around six years between drinks. Fool’s Errand (Nonesuch) is studied and carefully put together music, as has been their model before, although its widescreen approach is half a step away from the folkie undertones that were often present before. Keeping with the concentration on details that seems a hallmark, the clip was even shot on old-school 35mm movie film, just because it had the right feeling to it as well. 

It’s also six or seven years if you were waiting a new Broken Social Scene offering as well. But Canadians can be like that, coupled with the conglomeration of people and some kind of collectivist ideal means that all 15 past-and-present members of the combine got at least a cameo on their upcoming album. Hug Of Thunder (Arts & Crafts) is another of those almost perfect titles of doing what it says on the tin. In its layers upon layers, this is open-hearted and open-armed music. It is big and gloriously sweet in its almost-choral voices coming at you, and having Feist among the vocal racket will nearly always be a plus point. 

The Owls have also been missing in action for a time, but that’s less of a break for commercial purposes than an acceptance that the musical experience and the pressures thereof can result in depression and anxiety damaging the people in it. Jesus Let Me Fly (Independent) is them refreshed, but with a laconic and maybe even weary feeling that comes from a Catholic upbringing in Newcastle. Although, that’s our very own Hunter Valley location, even allowing there are literal and figurative echoes that nod toward Britpop, or even America’s Pacific Northwest circa 1994, in their musical musings. 

There’s also something very Australian in the slightly awkward intimacy Emma Russack offers, even as she flips the aforementioned Ms Barnett’s ‘…nobody cares if you don’t go to the party’ with the blunt contradiction that, in fact, Everybody Cares (Spunk), and you can be the subject of gossip and speculation, while you’re actually home reading Sartre (yes, of course you are…). The music’s staccato hesitancy fits with the nervy doubts of life that might be hiding behind the bravado, as you decide whether to read another chapter, or just hide under the doona. 

But if you want a voice, just revel in Dan Sultan. Fucksake, what’s it gonna take for this man, this presence, to be regarded as the great Australia rock/soul/whatever singer that he is? Hold It Together (Liberation), following on from his previous towering hunk of grunt Magnetic, is him and his handlers getting it right. That and this are pop music writ large. They sound proper. Like they should be blasting out of every radio. But there might be the issue: It’s almost all too big for community radio, maybe too traditional for Triple J, while conversely too young for Double J, and certainly just too good and too smart for commercial FMs. Oh well, just find a place for him in your heart, head, and feet. 

Of course, you can stir up interest by keeping a bit of mystery about what’s going on. Thus, Love Deluxe may or may not be an artist or artists you already, perhaps working in a slightly different field than usual. Or not. Cool Breeze Over The Mountains (Soothsayer) almost seems to have one eye on possible income streams. It’s an ideal soundtrack for a commercial where a retro sports car is cruising down that winding road to Nice or Monte Carlo – or one of those other French cities they named after an Arnotts biscuit – while the wind blows attractively through the hair of the girl in the passenger seat. Look, it’s all superbly polished but is a bit like musical fairy floss – gloriously sweet, but just melts away after you suck on it for a few seconds. 

Things can still be a bit grittier in the old country. Going past the distaste I automatically have for Brighton supporters at the moment, as they prepare to go back to the Premier League while Leeds still languish in the Championship, Royal Blood are of the nearly always noble two-piece guitar-and-drum combo model. While there’s some of the almost obligatory blues flavour the format suggests in Hook, Line, And Sinker (Warner), their racket also seems to have some post-punk angles in it – more Gang Of Four than White Stripes, if you’re looking for reference points. Whatever, it’s a big noise, which makes the blokes down the front get well-sweaty. Goes alright.