‘Stay in Your Lane’: Is Courtney Barnett teasing a new album on tour?
With any luck, our long wait for a new Courtney Barnett album might be almost over. Though there is no official confirmation that everyone’s favourite Aussie singer-songwriter is ready to release a new collection of songs, and her first since 2021, Barnett has been previewing a few new compositions at her most recent shows at festivals in America.
At her May 10th show at the Just Like Heaven Festival in Pasadena, CA, Barnett opened with arguably her best-known song, ‘Avant Gardener’, and then performed something that is still listed on setlist.fm as ‘(Unknown)’. More recently, at the Green River Festival in Massachusetts, Barnett debuted two more ‘unknown’ numbers, though fans who were lucky enough to be at the front of the crowd managed to grab a setlist from the stage which has since revealed that the new songs she’s played so far are called ‘Stay In Your Lane’, ‘Over My Head’ and ‘Mantis’. All of which are very Courtney Barnett-sounding song titles, indeed!
And, judging by the few short clips that have made their way onto social media from the shows, the songs sound like quintessential Courtney Barnett tracks in more than just their names. On ‘Stay In Your Lane’, it sounds like Barnett is moving away from the softer sound that settled over most of Things Take Time, Take Time and returning to the energy and anger that was such a driving force on her excellent Tell Me How You Really Feel, while ‘Mantis’ maintains the softer, more melodic and mellifluous approach from that more recent work. Of course, it goes without saying that regardless of the sound and tone of the songs, her rapid-fire, soul-searching and caustic way with words remains firmly focused and entirely intact.
Whilst Barnett’s most recently released recording came earlier in the year in the form of her gorgeous contribution to the tribute album Heart of Gold: The Songs of Neil Young, ‘Lotta Love’, her last studio album of original songs arrived in 2021. That time out, she didn’t perform new material ahead of the album announcement, though fans only had to wait one day between the confirmation of the release and the debut of its lead single, ‘Rae Street’.
Since then, Barnett has released her first film—and its accompanying soundtrack album, in the beautifully shot and produced, often wonderful and profound, Anonymous Club—featured on a few tracks from other artists, closed down her record label Milk! Records and relocated from Australia to LA, as well as continuing to tour the world. It seems that, somewhere amongst all that, she has found time to write and record a new album that, judging from the first few songs that she’s shared with the world, will be just as good as anything she’s ever done before.
Elsewhere during her show at the Just Like Heaven Festival, Barnett brought out her frequent collaborator Kurt Vile for a duet on the opening song from their 2018 joint album Lotta Sea Lice, ‘Over Everything’, which was just as sloppy, hazy and lazy, laconic and brilliant as the original version is.
Barnett is not booked for any more performances between now and September, which gives her plenty of time to work on a more formal album announcement and put any final finishing touches to the next instalment in her already excellent discography.
