GRAMMY-nominated Australian singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett announces her highly-anticipated fourth studio album, Creature of Habit, including the brand new single, 'Site Unseen', which features Waxahatchee.
Out March 27 on Fiction Records, Creature of Habit marks a decisive new chapter in Courtney Barnett’s musical evolution. It’s a bold, emotionally resonant record that explores the central question: how to get out of your own way so you can truly feel your life. Written in the wake of a relocation from Australia to Los Angeles and the closure of her long-running label Milk! Records, Barnett was grappling with changes that put the future of both her life and career in question. Rather than internalising those feelings, she decided to bring all this swirling confusion directly into the recording process. The announcement follows the release of the first single of this new era, the fiery and unapologetic ‘Stay In Your Lane’ in October last year.
The perceptive lyricism and delivery of ‘Site Unseen’ evokes those emotions that have drawn Courtney Barnett’s listeners in since the very beginning. “Letting go of everything that might have been/ and if we like it here, we’ll stay another year,” she sings, “let’s figure out the rest another day.” These sentiments testify to the messages of openness and acceptance of change that are woven through Creature of Habit. The track also holds particular personal significance to Barnett, because it features harmonies from one of her favorite singers – Katie Crutchfield of Waxahatchee.
Listen to ‘Site Unseen’ on F1 Tracks.
“I tried three separate times over two years to track this song, and each time it either wasn’t finished or didn’t sound right and each time we had to start again,” Barnett recalls. “I kept hearing this really high harmony in my head, so for the fourth and final version, I asked Katie if she’d be into singing it with me. I’m a big Waxahatchee fan. I really love Katie’s songwriting and her voice, so it was an honour to have her sing on Site Unseen.”
In the hands of Courtney Barnett, fragments of everyday life become rich and riveting. A deft lyricist and virtuosic guitarist with inimitable musicianship, Barnett first found critical acclaim with 2013’s The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas and broke into the mainstream in 2015 with her debut album, Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit. Garnering a coveted Best New Artist Grammy nomination and numerous other accolades including Saturday Night Live, the album stands as a generational classic.
Barnett followed her debut with 2017’s Lotta Sea Lice, an acclaimed collaborative record with Kurt Vile, and eschewed the vignettes of her early records on 2018’s Tell Me How You Really Feel, her humid, political sophomore record, which featured the Margaret Atwood-invoking single ‘Nameless, Faceless’. In 2021, she released Things Take Time, Take Time, a remarkable artistic step forward.
