Courtney Barnett has formally announced her third studio album Things Take Time, Take Time. Set to drop November 12th via Mom+Pop Music / Marathon Artists, the album is a finely-woven collage of snapshots recorded at a time of creative renewal and deeper understanding for Barnett. The work signals an exciting new chapter for a musician who is operating at the very peak of her powers and it sees her consolidating her place in the storied global lineage of ground-breaking and influential female singer-songwriters. 

Over the course of her discography to date, Barnett has made it her mission to record and bear witness to the minutiae and idiosyncrasies of life in all their awkward yet poignant glory. She has a catalogue of songs that are both acutely personal and so beautifully sketched that they can’t help but resonate deeply with the listener. This brings us to her third album.

Things Take Time, Take Time was written over two years and recorded towards the end of 2020 and early 2021 in Sydney, Northern NSW and Melbourne with musical kindred-spirit producer/drummer Stella Mozgawa (Warpaint, Cate le Bon, Kurt Vile). Things Take Time, Take Time is yet another assured leap forward for Barnett; a breakthrough really, but not in the ways you might expect. This is Barnett at her most creative and adventurous – an exquisite look at Courtney’s private world, and consequently her most beautiful and intimate record to date, with songs dealing unabashedly with love, renewal, healing and self-discovery. 

Album opener (and first single) “Rae Street” sets the tone, a stirring, mid-tempo essay which details the everyday life of a small community while juxtaposing it against break-neck speed of modern society, particularly with the memorable chorus of “time is money; and money is no man’s friend”. In Barnett’s hands the plaintive lyrics become intensely, strikingly alive, a work of astonishing lyricism that uses quiet actions and observations to pry open the way in which the human need to connect is often lost amidst the white noise. 

Things Take Time, Take Time is a stunning, shining glimpse into Courtney 2.0 – no less droll and sharply observant, but more rhythmic, detailed, and effusive with it. This is Courtney’s world – full of the strangeness, busyness and undeniable warmth of life – and you will definitely want to spend some time in it.   

Photo Courtesy: Mia Mala McDonald