LOTW 05: Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile, Death Valley Girls
August, August, August. The listening continues below!
“Continental Breakfast” & “Peepin’ Tom,” Lotta Sea Lice, Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile (2017)
I love both Kurt Vile and Courtney Barnett, so it makes sense I would love this. It’s basically just a question of why I hadn’t listened sooner. Their sounds are the perfect counterpoint to each other. Vile and Barnett are almost mirrors of each other, everything from their back-and-forth vocals (utilizing similar techniques, but interpreting them in their own ranges and sounds), to their dueling (in a good way) guitar tones. This idea is alluded to in the album cover: Vile’s white-shirt-black background vs. Barnett’s black-shirt-white background. Even their guitars are yin-yanged, Barnett’s with a black body and white pickguard and Vile’s reversed. PB&J, these two.
“Continental Breakfast” evokes classic, somewhat less experimental Vile. Finger-picked acoustic guitar, swirling electric tones, and his almost-talking singing voice open the track and are mirrored back by Barnett through the verses. Eventually, the two join forces in the chorus. The light percussion that backs the entire song gives off something like, dare I say, The Lumineers? Just in theory, not really so much in practice. Maybe when I say The Lumineers, I mean Fleet Foxes. What I really mean is the song feels like walking around on a fall morning when there's a crisp to the air and you notice some leaves are starting to turn orange. Catch my drift? The track is dripping with nostalgia.
The lyricism throughout the entire album is incredibly strong, specifically on “Peepin’ Tom.” With just Barnett and her guitar, she meditates on her desire for a middle point between not wanting to do anything, but not wanting to do nothing (basically me all the time). “I don’t wanna work but I don’t wanna sit around / All day frowning,” “I don’t wanna give up but I kinda wanna lie down / Not sleep just rest,” these are the words of a girl stuck in limbo, a specific limbo in which I have found myself many times, where staying on the path you’re on is not an option, but the thought of veering in a new direction is equally as draining. Preach. If you’re a fan of either of these artists, Lotta Sea Lice is worth the top to bottom listen.
Listen if you like: going to/being taken to the sea to heal (a la Beth in Little Women), all kinds of guitar, the exact point where folk and rock meet on the genre spectrum, the state of Vermont, dune grass
“All That Is Not of Me” & “It’s All Really Kind of Amazing,” Islands in the Sky, Death Valley Girls (2023)
LA-based psych group Death Valley Girls won me over with 2020’s Under the Spell of Joy. Their newest release, Islands In The Sky, picks up right where the sounds of USJ left off. Bonnie Bloomgarden returns with her classic echoing vocals that turn each song into a sort of anthem that can be shouted from rooftops and out windows, which is only emphasized by Larry Schemel’s distorted-to-the-max guitar. This is specifically true on the album’s closer, “It’s All Really Kind of Amazing,” on which Bloomgarden explores the idea of waking up one morning and seeing that everything you’ve been asking the universe for has made its way back to you. “You’ve seen the signs / Now is the time / 11:11 and 2:22 / It’s all just for you,” aka, those little indications of the universe being on your side haven’t been in your head, and now’s the time for you to take on the new reality you’ve created for yourself. The “oohs” and “ahhs” that back Bloomberg’s vocals, in conjunction with classic psychedelic instrumentation (cymbals, layered guitars, a relentless groove with a breakdown two-thirds of the way through the song) provide a world-building foundation to the track that makes you feel like you’re getting cast up into THE island in the sky the album title refers to, a kind of reward for listening through the record until the end.
Listen if you like: cosmic energy, spiritual healing, angel numbers, taking what resonates and leaving what doesn’t, TikTok tarot readings, good ole fashioned psych rock
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