about the artist
Since the release of her full-length debut in 2015, Courtney Barnett has been celebrated as one of the most distinctive and compelling voices in indie rock.
She’s a singer-songwriter who blends witty, hilarious, and occasionally heartbreaking observations with devastating self-assessment. With countless awards in her home country of Australia, as well as Grammy and BRIT nominations, she has earned fawning press and adoring audiences.
History
Barnett’s rise to global prominence feels both unprecedented and important.
Music fans have rarely witnessed the breathless acclaim and superlatives that comprised reviews of Barnett’s debut album “Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit.” Rolling Stone praised her as “one of the sharpest, most original songwriters around – at any level, in any genre… a self-strafing humorist á la Lena Dunham who’s also a Dylan-style word ninja.” In 2017, she released the wonderful album “Lotta Sea Lice,” an introspective but beautiful collection of duets with Kurt Vile, serving as a gorgeous placeholder while we awaited the release of her world-weary-but-fierce sophomore solo album “Tell Me How You Really Feel.”
While her lyrics continue to encompass the poetic, political, and personal, “Tell Me…” reveals a startling new lyrical economy. Barnett’s newest songs reveal myriad layers of meaning in seemingly every line, all the while accompanied by her own face-melting guitar and one of the best rhythm sections in rock. Her increasingly unusual song structures, timbres, and moods hint at future ambition, while her glorious, feedback-heavy live show has eviscerated audiences on five continents.
