Courtney Barnett, for those not familiar already, is a Melbourne-based artist and independent folk/rock musician, and she’s currently lighting the world on fire.
Her songs are each meticulously crafted, with lyrics that resonate deep within your mind, burning away at you with subtle juxtapositions and metaphors. The reviews for the songs that continue to be released from her debut LP, Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit are each better than the last.
Today, Barnett shares “Depreston” a song that’s as simplistically beautiful as it is deep and meditative. “Depreston” is a song about the decisions we all must make as we grow older, specifically, the track paints a picture of a typical house hunt, traveling to Preston – a city outside of where Barnett grew up, and a crass real estate agent selling a home: “And its going pretty cheap you say? / Well it’s a deceased estate / Aren’t the pressed metal ceilings great? // Then I see the handrail in the shower / The collection of those canisters for coffee tea and flour / And a photo of a young man in a van in Vietnam”
And then you realize, the song’s subject takes a turn to the original owner of the house, an elderly woman living in the home with a disability. But the shift only occurs via a distorted guitar break, and just as you start to empathize with the woman, the real estate agent butts in: “If you’ve got a spare half a million / You could knock it down and start rebuildin‘”
Courtney Barnett will embark on a North American tour starting later this month at SXSW in Austin, and continuing through July, playing plenty of festival dates including this year’s Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago. Her full tour dates are below, and look for her LP Sometimes I Sit And Think, Sometimes I Just Sit, due out March 24 on Mom + Pop.
Courtney Barnett Tour Dates
03.16.15 – 03.20.15 – SXSW – Austin, TX
05.18.15 – The Sinclair – Boston, MA
05.19.15-5.21.15 – Bowery Ballroom – New York, NY
05.22.15 – 05.25.15 – Sasquatch Festival – George, WA
05.27.15 – Red Rocks – Morrison, CO
05.29.15 – 05.31.15 – Bottle Rock Napa Valley – Napa, CA
05.30.15-5.31.15 – The Roxy Theatre – Los Angeles, CA
06.02.15 – Casbah – San Diego, CA
06.05.15 – The Mohawk – Austin, TX
06.06.15 – Club Dada – Dallas, TX
06.07.15 – One Eyed Jacks – New Orleans, LA
06.09.15 – Vinyl – Atlanta, GA
06.10.15 – Koka Booth Amphitheater – Cary, NC
06.11.15 – 06.14.15 – Bonnaroo Music Festival – Manchester, TN
06.13.15 – 9:30 Club – Washington, DC
06.15.15 – Union Transfer – Philadelphia, PA
06.18.15 – Uptown Theatre – Kansas City, KC
07.19.15 – Pitchfork Music Festival – Chicago, IL
07.24.15 – 07.25.15 – WayHome Music & Arts Festival – Oro-Medonte, ON
07.25.15 – Newport Folk Fest – Newport, RI
