Courtney Barnett explains her decision to close label Milk! Records
Melbourne musician Courtney Barnett has announced her decision to close Milk! Records, which she co-founded in 2012 with fellow artist Jen Cloher.
Since forming the label, Milk! has been responsible for 60 releases and won numerous awards along its journey. However, the strains of running an independent record label have led the duo to decide to close the business later this year as Barnett seeks to start a fresh chapter.
The final release on Milk! will be the instrumental album End of the Day, which Barnett made with Warpaint’s Stella Mozgawa. The LP is the soundtrack to Danny Cohen’s documentary about Barnett, Anonymous Club, released in 2021.
“A year ago or maybe even six months ago, thinking about [closing it] would’ve been so impossible and so difficult and I would’ve resisted. One day I literally just woke up and my mind had changed,” she told The Guardian. “I used to smoke daily and then one day I just was like, ‘I’m quitting,’” Barnett added.
While she was initially hesitant to share the sad news with artists on the label’s roster, Barnett said they “were actually amazing” when she delivered the fatal dosage of information. “I’ve been doing a lot of therapy in the last year. Normally I’d be so uncomfortable with any sort of … not confrontation, but any sort of important conversation. There’s this deep-seated guilt about letting people down.”
Barnett added: “But I think nearly everyone was just like, ‘I totally get it … I don’t even know how you guys do it.’”
Speaking about the financial pressures of running a label, Barnett said: “I feel like that was our constant: how do we make money? How do we sell T-shirts to make money? It’s fun, but it’s also tiring.”
Barnett has begun transitioning her life to Los Angeles from Melbourne and following the closure of the label, California will be her permanent base as she enters a new chapter of her career.
“I’m still coming to terms with the end of it … But I’m letting go of that [guilt] feeling. It’s like that idea of looking after yourself so you can look after someone else. That reverse selfishness – you can’t love someone ‘til you love yourself – that kind of idea,” she explained.
In a positive review of Barnett’s most recent album Things Take Time, Take Time, Far Out wrote: “None of these tracks stretches to be anything other than what they are — they don’t have awards, ratings or ground-shaking futures in mind, and that is much to Barnett’s credit, because, in the words of the cheesiest Neighbours boyfriend who was seemingly prattling on in the background when these were written: they are beautiful just the way they are.”
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