Courtney Barnett lives in Melbourne, Australia, in a house she was cleaning when she answered her phone. She said it was a nice day, "kind of cold," and sounded relaxed and happy to be home after a year of on-and-off touring to promote her album, "Sometimes I Sit and Think and Sometimes I Just Sit," which is gunning for best record of the year on the lists of everyone from music website Pitchfork (grade: 8.6) to boomer curmudgeon Robert Christgau (grade: A).
"It's nice to hang out with friends and do some writing," she says, and pauses before adding, "which is fun." Barnett's conversation is full of stops and starts, as are her songs, which are about quotidian matters that apply as much to your life as they do to hers.
"I read a lot growing up and did a lot of sport," she says, explaining what formed her sensibility. "We were an outdoorsy family, lots of camping and playing in the garden." A garden, in fact, is the setting for her most dramatic song, "Avant Gardener," in which a session of planting leads to a deadly allergic reaction and a trip to the hospital.