Album Review: Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile – Lotta Sea Lice


Lotta Sea Lice



Collaborative albums can be, and usually are, a tricky endeavor.

There are usually two ways that most collaboration albums end up being successful: in the first and most common method, the collaborators discover a common musical ground and complement one another with their own subtle nuances. Think of groups such as The Traveling Wilburys, Monsters Of Folk, or albums like This Love Is Giant and Watch the Throne.

The sonic palette feels familiar, but it’s injected with a vibrant fresh energy. In the other path, the collaborative effort is perceived as an artistic tangent within each artist’s discography. Paul McCartney and Youth’s project The Fireman, or Miley Cyrus’s album with The Flaming Lips, are examples of this. In these projects collaboration is almost a means for experimentation.

The cheerily hazy goofball Kurt Vile, and the wryly observant Courtney Barnett, are a pairing that makes sense on paper. Vile’s droning stoner country-blues and Barnett’s anthemic apathetic pep orbit a similar laissez-faire dominion. From sharp lyricism to mumbling melodic deliveries and the tangled, and definitely jangled, Fender guitars, it’s clear that the pair are rooted in a shared fondness for nineties alternative rock’s blasé ethos.

Throughout Lotta Sea Lice the pair naturally display a shared acute percipience and appreciation for each others music, and the songwriting process itself.

On the meta dreamy tumble Let It Go, Barnett and Vile converse about the songwriting process and the stasis of writer’s block. “What comes first, the chorus or the verse?”, Barnett asks while Kurt quickly attests his own stagnation, “A bit blocked at the moment”. It’s a humble and rare peek into the internal everyday life of a pair of artists whose usual subject matter focuses on the external peripheries of routine life.

On the outstandingly twangy opener Over Everything the mic is passed like doobie between the two as their guitars tangle around and in-between a meditative rhythm section. Escalating into a collage acoustic strums, sweeping feedback and barbing jangles, these are not only two of the most adept guitarists in modern rock n’ roll, but they understand how to get specific sounds out of their instruments. But what is more significant is that they are consummate arrangers: they understand where and when to release these tones and textures.

Vile’s swampy bar-blues take on Barnett’s Outta The Woodwork stumbles with a gritty resignation that contrasts delightfully in context with the dreary, ethereal, piano-led feel of the original. Barnett on the other hand stays truer to the source material, covering Vile’s spinning folk Peein’ Tom, but her slightly higher and more relaxed take swirls with an obtuse Zen.

On Jen Cloher’s Fear Is Like A Forest, the pair transform the original’s wallowing Western bob into an all-out spaghetti western affair filled with interjecting Crazy Horse inspired leads. By the time the shootout ends, you’re left marveling at the fact that guitar music has survived and can still sound this fun in 2017 even though its core ingredients haven’t changed much.



Sure, the wide ranging seismograph of emotions that love brings with it infectiously inspires artists and moves audiences with a distinct power. The cozy familiarity and history of platonic friendship is a topic that often gets regulated to a second-tier trope in songwriting – not necessarily in a lyrical sense, but in genuine feeling. Lotta Sea Lice feels like an album made of a genuine friendship: lyrically the idea of friendship pervades over the course of the album, but what’s more notable and unique is the ardor for friendship the radiates throughout. There’s laughs before tracks start and there’s an all-star cast of friends and lovers playing on it, giving the record an unspoiled, cathartic zeal.

On the snug folk of Continental Breakfast, Vile and Barnett sound like old friends conversing over relatable experiences and shared interests. Elsewhere, the infectiously catchy and cheery stoner doodle Blue Cheese finds the pair mischievously grinning through their teeth as they open up with the amazing comical lyrical couplet, “Chinese rock n’ roll, blue Cheese up your – well you know”. They sound like, and feel like, childhood friends.

Lotta Sea Lice is a record that just seems to invite you into its cozy abode. The comfort and warmth of the record feels like a friendly hug in these anxious times. Sure, at times, like on On Script, the pair fall to a wallowing couch lock of splitting guitars and sing-speak that boards on being a little too spaced out, but with its infectiously charming hosts of personalities armed with their hooky melodies you’d be stupid to turn down these good vibes.

(Trey Tyler)


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