REALLY FEELING IT
Courtney Barnett is a paradox; fame and entrepreneurialism dressed down in a flannel and beanie.
She’s an American TV late show star and indie music entrepreneur with her own record label whose lyrics chronicle life with a tenor of self doubt and anxiety. The lead track off her new album is called Hopefulessness, a slow build jam that tails off into the vexatious sound of Barnett’s own kettle whistling away on the gas stove. It’s the sound of her anxiety captured on an iPhone. “When I’m at the other end of the house and hear it going but can’t get there, it really stresses me out.”
If you could visually reconstruct the melancholy haze of Barnett’s lyrics on songs like Depreston, you’d end up with the strip of shops her Milk! label headquarters is nestled into. The red-painted brick building still has the markings of an ex-industrial solvents outlet, and its flanked by mostly decrepit or defunct businesses for which time has moved on.
Inside, the front is stacked floor to ceiling with merch. Wall-to-wall t-shirts surround a central island bench. It feels crafty and DIY, like the cutting table at your local Spotlight. I meet Barnett out the back, where the band/loft space is separated from the front by a giant curtain. It’s Barnett’s happy place — guitars, Fender amps, a drum kit, PA, and the perfect place to procrastinate. When she was meant to be writing lyrics for her latest album, Tell Me How You Really Feel, she would distract herself by hanging fairy lights. “I spent three hours nearly falling off ladders trying to hang fairy lights!” she said. “I had this manic idea that I needed to have fairy lights every where to have a vibe. Burke [Reid, producer] was like, ‘Stop with the fairy lights and write your lyrics!’”
“I find it a weird business to pick a producer, engineer or studio you don’t know and just lock it in. They could be a total arsehole or
