By Che Sullivan
photo editor
Melbourne-based bandleader Courtney Barnett starts her latest record, “Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit” with a song about a sad man waking up, trying to go about this day, but then deciding to skip work.
By the chorus he sees a young boy on the roof of a building. He worries that the boy is going to jump, but the boy says, “I think you’re projecting/ I come up here for perception and clarity/ I like to imagine I’m playing Sim City.” Even by the first chorus of the album, you can see that it’s is going to be full of offhand, tongue-in-cheek humor in the midst of heavy emotions, and yet the jokes never detract from the effect of the overarching feelings of each song.
In the album’s first single, “Pedestrian at Best,” released in late January, Barnett utilizes distorted guitars and jarring, rubbery rhythms that coincide perfectly with the indecisiveness and confusion that the lyrics convey in the song. Just take the first line: “I love you/ I hate you/ I’m on the fence/ It all depends.” At once, it seems like a juxtaposition of the song’s perhaps harsher style and the lyrics, at the same time, fit perfectly together. This song is also one of the album’s funniest. Just before the last chorus, she ends the verse by shouting, “I’m a fake, I’m a phony/ I’m awake, I’m alone, I’m homely/ I’m a Scorpio!”
The second single, however, is more stripped down, but still maintains self-awareness in its humor; take even the punned title, “Depreston.” Clearly the song is about apartment hunting and the dreariness of it, but other things can always be dug out of it. My favorite kinds of songs are oddly specific but still open enough to be applicable to a million other things (see: “Hyperballad”).
There are very few slow spots, and I’ve found that few records can take themselves seriously and allow themselves to feel while maintaining self-awareness like this one. Barnett tells us that feeling like things aren’t coming together is okay, and it might even be enjoyable to be in that awkward space of uncertainty.
One of the great things about this record is that it’s enjoyable to just sit and listen to the stories Barnett tells us, but it also leaves the door open for personal interpretation if the listener wishes to take it there. And if I had to say one thing I know is true when listening to this record (and perhaps in life, generally), well, “Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit.”
Standout tracks: “Aqua Profunda!,” “Pedestrian at Best,” “An Illustration of Loneliness (Sleepless in New York)”
“Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit” was released on March 24, 2015.