COURTNEY BARNETT – SOMETIMES I SIT AND THINK, AND SOMETIMES I JUST SIT
Felt my muscles burn, I took a tumble turn / For the worse, it’s a curse / My lack of athleticism, sunk like a stone / Like a first owner’s home loan, Courtney Barnett sings with a huge portion of black humor and dark comparisons. In “Aqua Profunda” she narrates how she tried to impress a man who was swimming in a lane next to her by holding her breath longer than she could normally do. The listener automatically has to smile listening to this song, because what the girl in that story does is such an unbelievably stupid and irrational action that can only go wrong. It is so foolish that it is already funny. At the same time, however, everyone has experienced or done something similarly stupid in order to impress the other sex, as well, and you cannot help but think of your own little anecdote.
Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit is the debut LP of the young Melbourne based musician Courtney Barnett, after having brought out the best of her previous EPs as the tremendous The Double EP: A Sea Of Split Peas in 2013. The album is sweating garage rock and punk with grungy and sometimes even psychedelic elements.
Courtney Barnett is a fabulous story teller. Her stories are about common events, e.g. what people might think when they are looking for an apartment in a dodgy Melbourne suburb (A garage for two cars to park in / or a lot of storage, if you’ve just got one) and the doubts they are having about the neighborhood when they see a man being arrested or learn that the previous owner has passed – which can be discovered in “Depreston”.
In “Elevator Operator” a raw and rough, stomping and pounding rock song, she slowly builds up the story making the listener think that the main character is about to commit suicide, only to eventually turn the plot around and explains that the reason why he took the elevator up to the roof of a skyscraper is to escape reality and play real-life SimCity for one day – I’m not suicidal, just idling insignificantly / I come up here for perception and clarity / I like to imagine I’m playing SimCity.
Courtney Barnett is very attached to her native soil which is very much reflected in her songtexting. Most of her songs take place in Melbourne and its surroundings. There are references about this city all over her lyrics, such as “96 tram line” or “Swanston”. In “Kim’s Caravan” she is walking down Sunset Strip only to clarify in the next line that it is the one on Phillip Island, not Los Angeles. This shows how down to earth she has stayed and that she is writing about what she is actually experiencing and about what she is seeing in life. At the time she wrote the songs for Sometimes I Sit… she had not been touring Europe and North America, yet. It will be interesting to discover what the next songs, after having travelled those countries will be dealing with.
Her musical style has developed significantly to her Double EP. While A Sea Of Split Peas has been more melodic and balladic, her new album sounds very rough, fierce and fast. She is backed by a fantastic band and a guitarist that is shaping pieces like “Small Poppies” with terrific soli. What she has kept is her way of singing in recitatives, like she does in “Pedestrian At Best” – an angry, powerful punk rock song. Put me on a pedestal and I’ll only disappoint you / (…) / Give me all your money, and I’ll make some origami, honey she is furiously and with a hoarse voice warning her lover to not trust her, while the guitars keep the song rolling.
“Debbie Downer” is a lively pop song in which she is explaining the insecurities a person is going through desperately searching for solutions and stability in life (Sell me all your golden rules and I’ll see / If that’s the kind of person that I wanna be / If I’m not happy, I’ll I be glad I kept receipts).
In “Boxing Day Blues” a beautiful ballad where only a slow rhythmically strummed guitar is accompanying her, she is explaining how love can end because of too different personalities and views (I am not what you’re looking for / My house has an open door / You need a lock and a key)
A dominating topic of Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I just Sit is the environment and ecological thinking that Courtney Barnett has developed. The seven minutes pamphlet “Kim’s Caravan” is the masterpiece of the record. A psychedelic poem which is more read out than actually sung and in which she is naming and shaming the pollution of the environment and what horrible effects this is having on the natural eco system ranging from dying seals to the slow but sure destruction of one of Australia’s most famous landmarks – The Great Barrier Reef it ain’t so great anymore / It’s been raped beyond belief, the dredgers treat it like a whore. This and “Dead Fox” are lyrics wise by far the two harshest pieces on the album. Courtney is criticizing mass consumerism, the desperate search of people to find the best deal, the fighting over prices and she is pleading for eating for more consciously (I get the cheap stuff at the supermarket, but they’re all pumped up with shit). All this criticism about the numbing and indifference and not caring of the population results in and reaches its climax with the wonderful apocalyptic, almost Dylan-esque text line, which show’s Courtney Barnett’s songwriting talent more than anything else – A possum Jackson Pollack is painted on the tar.
Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit was recorded in roughly ten days (source: interview in Uncut Magazine, take 215, April 2015). Both the title and the cover (a self-drawn rocking chair on a carpet) are brilliantly fitting the imagination of how Courtney is writing the songs by observing her surroundings and the people that pass by and that she is talking to.
After A Sea of Split Peas it was exciting to listen how Courtney has developed her music further. It was hard to top her first issue, but I strongly believe that she managed magnificently. Sometimes I Sit…is a brilliant record with twists and turns all over. The more you listen to it, the more you discover about the music and the texts. It is an album that does not get boring. Personally speaking, it is so far the album of the year 2015.
Rating: 9 out of 10 grizzlies
Released on Marathon Artists
Track list:
1. Elevator Operator
2. Pedestrian At Best
3. An Illustration of Loneliness (Sleepless In New York)
4. Small Poppies
5. Depreston
6. Aqua Profunda!
7. Dead Fox
8. Nobody Really Cares If You Don’t Go To The Party
9. Debbie Downer
10. Kim’s Caravan
11. Boxing Day Blues
Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit is the debut LP of the young Melbourne based musician Courtney Barnett, after having brought out the best of her previous EPs as the tremendous The Double EP: A Sea Of Split Peas in 2013. The album is sweating garage rock and punk with grungy and sometimes even psychedelic elements.
Courtney Barnett is a fabulous story teller. Her stories are about common events, e.g. what people might think when they are looking for an apartment in a dodgy Melbourne suburb (A garage for two cars to park in / or a lot of storage, if you’ve just got one) and the doubts they are having about the neighborhood when they see a man being arrested or learn that the previous owner has passed – which can be discovered in “Depreston”.
In “Elevator Operator” a raw and rough, stomping and pounding rock song, she slowly builds up the story making the listener think that the main character is about to commit suicide, only to eventually turn the plot around and explains that the reason why he took the elevator up to the roof of a skyscraper is to escape reality and play real-life SimCity for one day – I’m not suicidal, just idling insignificantly / I come up here for perception and clarity / I like to imagine I’m playing SimCity.
Courtney Barnett is very attached to her native soil which is very much reflected in her songtexting. Most of her songs take place in Melbourne and its surroundings. There are references about this city all over her lyrics, such as “96 tram line” or “Swanston”. In “Kim’s Caravan” she is walking down Sunset Strip only to clarify in the next line that it is the one on Phillip Island, not Los Angeles. This shows how down to earth she has stayed and that she is writing about what she is actually experiencing and about what she is seeing in life. At the time she wrote the songs for Sometimes I Sit… she had not been touring Europe and North America, yet. It will be interesting to discover what the next songs, after having travelled those countries will be dealing with.
Her musical style has developed significantly to her Double EP. While A Sea Of Split Peas has been more melodic and balladic, her new album sounds very rough, fierce and fast. She is backed by a fantastic band and a guitarist that is shaping pieces like “Small Poppies” with terrific soli. What she has kept is her way of singing in recitatives, like she does in “Pedestrian At Best” – an angry, powerful punk rock song. Put me on a pedestal and I’ll only disappoint you / (…) / Give me all your money, and I’ll make some origami, honey she is furiously and with a hoarse voice warning her lover to not trust her, while the guitars keep the song rolling.
“Debbie Downer” is a lively pop song in which she is explaining the insecurities a person is going through desperately searching for solutions and stability in life (Sell me all your golden rules and I’ll see / If that’s the kind of person that I wanna be / If I’m not happy, I’ll I be glad I kept receipts).
In “Boxing Day Blues” a beautiful ballad where only a slow rhythmically strummed guitar is accompanying her, she is explaining how love can end because of too different personalities and views (I am not what you’re looking for / My house has an open door / You need a lock and a key)
A dominating topic of Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I just Sit is the environment and ecological thinking that Courtney Barnett has developed. The seven minutes pamphlet “Kim’s Caravan” is the masterpiece of the record. A psychedelic poem which is more read out than actually sung and in which she is naming and shaming the pollution of the environment and what horrible effects this is having on the natural eco system ranging from dying seals to the slow but sure destruction of one of Australia’s most famous landmarks – The Great Barrier Reef it ain’t so great anymore / It’s been raped beyond belief, the dredgers treat it like a whore. This and “Dead Fox” are lyrics wise by far the two harshest pieces on the album. Courtney is criticizing mass consumerism, the desperate search of people to find the best deal, the fighting over prices and she is pleading for eating for more consciously (I get the cheap stuff at the supermarket, but they’re all pumped up with shit). All this criticism about the numbing and indifference and not caring of the population results in and reaches its climax with the wonderful apocalyptic, almost Dylan-esque text line, which show’s Courtney Barnett’s songwriting talent more than anything else – A possum Jackson Pollack is painted on the tar.
Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit was recorded in roughly ten days (source: interview in Uncut Magazine, take 215, April 2015). Both the title and the cover (a self-drawn rocking chair on a carpet) are brilliantly fitting the imagination of how Courtney is writing the songs by observing her surroundings and the people that pass by and that she is talking to.
After A Sea of Split Peas it was exciting to listen how Courtney has developed her music further. It was hard to top her first issue, but I strongly believe that she managed magnificently. Sometimes I Sit…is a brilliant record with twists and turns all over. The more you listen to it, the more you discover about the music and the texts. It is an album that does not get boring. Personally speaking, it is so far the album of the year 2015.
Rating: 9 out of 10 grizzlies
Released on Marathon Artists
Track list:
1. Elevator Operator
2. Pedestrian At Best
3. An Illustration of Loneliness (Sleepless In New York)
4. Small Poppies
5. Depreston
6. Aqua Profunda!
7. Dead Fox
8. Nobody Really Cares If You Don’t Go To The Party
9. Debbie Downer
10. Kim’s Caravan
11. Boxing Day Blues