Courtney Barnett started Milk! Records in 2012 to release her first EP I’ve Got A Friend Called Emily Ferris. Soon aftercame the second EP How To Carve A Carrot Into A Rose. She took her band overseas with a condensed back catalogue called The Double EP: A Sea Of Split Peas. In 2015 Barnett released album Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit to worldwide critical acclaim.
“Small Talk,” is an outtake from Courtney Barnett’s 2018 album Tell Me How You Really Feel sounds a lot like most songs on the LP: an expansive, vamp-based affair with sunny choruses. Barnett’s hook-writing has only gotten sharper as time goes on. Where her early work would have been satisfied to let the interlocking organ/bass line groove ride for the entire runtime, here she injects an immediately felt, warmly rendered chorus of group singalongs. Her lyrics are, as always, sharp as a tack.
She takes the title seriously, regaling us with the shaggiest of shaggy-dog stories about whatever seems to float into her mind. “I’ve got a brother, Blake / he’s four years older than me / and I guess he always will be,” she sings, somehow managing to be both hilarious and weirdly philosophical. If she never got into business as a musician, Barnett could roundly kick all of our asses at this writing thing.
‘Charity’ is taken from Courtney Barnett’s album ‘Tell Me How You Really Feel’
Released May 18th, 2018
Courtney Barnett – Guitar, Vocals
Bones Sloane – Bass, Backing Vocals
Dave Mudie – Drums, Percussion
Dan Luscombe – Keys, Organ, Guitar, Backing Vocals
Kim Deal – Backing Vocals (Tracks 5 and 7), Guitar (Track 7)
Kelley Deal – Backing Vocals (Track 7)
All songs written by Courtney Barnett
