“I Feel More Like a Guitarist Than a Singer”

Courtney Barnett is the singer-songwriter who doesn’t identify as one. Her secret weapon: “My ‘guitarmonies’...”

- By Grant Moon. Photographs by Mia Mala McDonald

She’s shy and polite, but Courtney Barnett clearly knows her own mind. “It’s impossible to describe music,” she says. “We try to put everything into these neatly organised categories so we can understand them, but it's always a bit difficult. I try to not bother doing it any more – it’s restrictive.”

She’s got a point, and Barnett’s own catalogue is certainly resistant to easy labelling. Call her indie, call her alternative, call her whatever, but over the past decade the Australian’s arty, happy-sad tunes have won her a growing audience in hip circles.

She co-founded her label Milk! Records to release her first EP, 2012’s I’ve Got A Friend Called Emily Ferris. Three years later her debut album Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit earned her four ARIA Music awards and a Best New Artist nomination at the Grammys. The follow-up, 2017’s Tell Me How You Really Feel, and Lotta Sea Lice, her acclaimed collaboration with uber-cool vocalist Kurt Vile, saw her stock rise further. Disappointingly, Covid nixed her opening slots for Nick Cave on his 2020 UK dates, but among her own shows this year she’ll support the Foo Fighters on two of their four UK dates.

Barnett’s latest, third album, Things Take Time, Take Time sees her at her most spare, direct, and emotionally impactful. From droll opener Rae Street to sleepy-eyed coda Oh The Night, Barnett’s intimate-yet-universal observations are delivered in her cool, talky vocal style – intersecting somewhere between Patti Smith and Sheryl Crow at times – and it’s all underpinned by some subtly strong, melodic guitar playing.