It can be frustrating when a hotly tipped artist’s debut arrives and you are left scratching your ahead about what exactly all the fuss is about. (I grant you that it’s something of a first world problem.) However Courtney Barnett’s debut album Sometimes I Sit And Think And Sometimes I Just Sit is out next week and to these ears it’s absolutely brilliant. Yes, there are hints of a lot of cool tars from the past forty or so years (Kim Gordon, Patti Smith, PJ Harvey, Kim Deal in her many guises to name but a few) but there is something that is distinctly her. This is an extremely strong debut album, which I am willing to bet will appear in the end of year lists, and hopefully those filled in by the punters not just those filed by the critics.

She has made it available to stream in its entirety a week before its release (March 23 in the UK), so take the time to listen to it, and play it loud.

And if you enjoy that – and I hope you will – check out her two earlier EPs, which were released together The Double EP: A Sea Of Split Peas which show that the critics who praised it then were definitely right.

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