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Recently, 24-year-old Melbourne-based singer Courtney Barnett said the following when asked about her songwriting: "The one thing that captivates me in a song is the honesty of a songwriter. It could be about walking to the shop, but if it's said with that person's perspective then it can make it interesting." It's this ethos that permeates her forthcoming debut album, The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas, which, as the title implies, is a mix of six brand new songs and six songs that formed her 2012 debut EP. First single Avant Gardener takes this sense of shining a light on the minutiae of life in a darkly comic direction, with Barnett utilising her blank, sing-speak delivery to tell the story of a slacker girl who gets up one morning and decides to do a spot of gardening, only to have an anaphylaxis induced panic-attack. "The paramedic thinks I'm clever 'cause I play guitar, I think she's clever 'cause she stops people dying," she drawls at one point. For the Wes Anderson-esque video – premiered here – Barnett and a group of friends play a game of tennis overseen by a nonchalant umpire, whose disinterest (he's reading Butch Cassidy so misses a tight line call) eventually leads to an on court rumble.
The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas is released on 15 October via House Anxiety/Marathon Artists.
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