"Things Take Time, Take Time" is Courtney Barnett Barnett at her most creative & joyful, consequently her most beautiful and intimate record to date. "Things Take Time, Take Time" is an assured leap forward for Barnett; a breakthrough really. This is Barnett at her most relaxed, creative and joyful. An exquisite look at the intimate, private world created by Barnett and her producer Stella Mozgawa (Warpaint, Sharon Van Etten, Kurt Vile). It’s consequently her most beautiful and intimate record to date.
Today, alt-rock superstar Courtney Barnett announces her third studio album "Things Take Time, Take Time", set to drop November 12th on Marathon Artists. A sonic collage of deeply personal snapshots of Barnett at a particularly joyful time in her life, it sees her definitively and confidently taking her place in the storied lineage of highly influential and ground-breaking female singersongwriters, and signals an exciting new phase indeed for a musician who is operating at the very peak of her powers.
There was good reason for Barnett’s singularly meteoric rise. Barnett remains driven to document the undocumented with painstaking, exacting detail. Over the course of her discography to date, she has made it her mission to record and bear witness to the minutiae and idiosyncrasies of life in all their awkward yet poignant glory, with songs that are sometimes so acutely personal yet beautifully sketched that they can’t help but resonate deeply with the listener. Which brings us neatly to her third album, "Things Take Time, Take Time".
Written over two years and recorded towards the end of 2020 and early 2021 between Sydney and Melbourne with producer/drummer Stella Mozgawa (Warpaint, Cate le Bon, Kurt Vile), "Things Take Time, Take Time" is yet another assured leap forward for Barnett; a breakthrough really, but not in the ways you might expect. This is Barnett at her most creative, relaxed and yes, happy - an exquisite look at Courtney’s private world, and consequently her most beautiful and intimate record to date, with songs dealing unabashedly with love, renewal,healing and self-discovery.
Album opener (and first single) "Rae Street" sets the tone beautifully, a gentle, mid-tempo essay which sketches in detail the everyday life of a small community while juxtaposing it against break-neck speed of modern society, particularly with the memorable chorus of "time is money; and money is no man’s friend". And yet it is no diatribe, let alone solipsistic musing; in Barnett’s hands the plaintive lyrics become intensely, strikingly alive, a work of astonishing lyricism that uses quiet actions and observations to pry open the way in which the human need to connect is often lost amidst the white noise.
Taken in toto, "Things Take Time, Take Time" is a stunning, shining glimpse into Courtney 2.0 - no less droll and sharply observant, but more rhythmic, detailed, and effusive with it. This is Courtney’s world - full of the strangeness, busyness and undeniable warmth of life - and you will definitely want to spend some time in it.
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