Courtney Barnett had never set foot outside her native Australia before 2014, but since then it's been a bit of a whirlwind for this singer songwriter, one of those nice surprises that crops every now and then, when the alignment of the planets (or something or other) conjures up that little bit of musical magic. Aussies in the know, already knew this, and via her second EP, How To Carve A Carrot Into A Rose, the word was spreading beyond her shores. In particular, it was the track Avante Gardener, a one-off type of autobiographical song about how she endured an anxiety/asthma attack whilst gardening and had to be carted off to hospital, that caught the ear of reviewers beyond Australia. Barnett has said she can't quite believe that song – 'very long, no chorus, lots of words' – should generate so much attention. But it did. It's her powerful combination of musicianship, voice and song that has seen this outsider run right through the pack in the most surprising fashion, her unique ability to paint a novelistic picture with just a few lines – which she says are little photographs of a moment in time – allied to some raw and unfiltered rock'nroll.

Last year she was at the Great Escape, where she was booked for a couple of shows; the first one at Komedia saw queues snaking around the block, to see her perform solo. The following night she did a band show at the Dome Studio bar, a gig that was undoubtedly the highlight of my Great Escape. Not only did she bring those wonderful songs to life (for almost all present, this was their first glimpse of Barnett), but she was thoroughly enjoying it too, her band (just her, a bassist and drummer) rocking out, looking for all the world like a grungy trio of Aussie indie kids having the time of their lives.

By the time she played those Great Escape shows, her debut album had been almost all recorded. But because she is now only re-entering the UK, it is only now seeing light of day. Not that it has mattered too much, for her UK tour sold out long ago, a veritable world of mouth phenomenon it seems.

Continuing very much in the vein of her two previous EPs, Sometimes I Sit and Think, Sometimes I Just Sit is often Dylanesque in its lyrical outpourings, but whereas Sir Bob relied more on subtle poetics, wilful obfuscation and nuanced storytelling, often of a deeply political and psychological hue, Barnett is mostly about the first person, and lo-fi in its approach to telling stories. But there is an art to that which very few can pull off. Jonathan Richman was one, and John Lennon in his more torrential moments, was another. David Byrne and Jeffrey Lewis spring to mind, consummate storytellers whose words and delivery imbued the songs an extra layer of melody beyond the guitar lines or rhythm section grooves.

Influenced by the dark humour of Roald Dahl, and mixing up her witty observations with a startling, often critical, self-assessment, the album is by turns funny, sad, maudlin, angry, full of the frustrations and mundanities of life. It's theses mundanities that, in her hands, sparkle into life, such as on the beautifully titled An Illustration of Loneliness: 'I lay awake at three, staring at the ceiling/It's a kind of off-white, maybe it's a cream', one of the many countless gems within that song that all add up to a story of loneliness, homesickness and missing someone special. On the written page it can sound boring and self-indulgent, but on record and on stage, it really does become a thing of sublime majesty.

At other times, it sounds like a stream of consciousness, although Barnett does very carefully craft her words, heavily edited down from the reams and reams of lyrics she produces, such as on Pedestrian At Best: 'My internal monologue is saturated analogue, its scratched and drifting, I've becoming attached to the idea that it's all a shifting dream, bittersweet philosophy. I've got no idea how I got here…' a declaration of really having not much of an idea how this has all happened, and for God sakes don't, as she sings, 'Put me on a pedestal', for she 'will only disappoint you'.

At rare times the mundanity veers too closely to the banal, such as on the new wavesque Aqua Profunda! 'I saw you in the lane next to me, you were doing freestyle, then you switched around, do a little bit of backstroke, I couldn't see underneath', ostensibly a song about attraction… Conversely, however, on the protest song Dead Fox, the seemingly conversational opening lines pave the way for a more profound discussion of environmental issues: 'Jen insists that we buy some organic vegetables, and I must admit i was a little skeptical at first, a little pesticide can't hurt,' she sings. 'If you can't see me, I can't see you' is the not-so-subtle underlying message about not caring, not worrying…

Musically, Sometimes I Just Sit and Think… is a raw, slightly dirty, and eclectic brew; from the crunchy rock of Pedestrian At Best to the gently plodding An Illustration of Loneliness (Sleepless in New York), and from the bluesy and languid seven minute epic that is Small Poppies, to the melancholy country Depreston, and from the jaunty psychedelic pop of Dead Foxes to the intensely brooding King's Caravan: 'We either think we are invincible or that we are invisible, realistically we are somewhere in-between. We all think we are nobody but everybody is somebody else's somebody', sings Barnett at her most poetic.

Barnett claims to be an indecisive person, hence the title of the album,which was inspired by a poster on her Grandma's wall, and although lyrically you might gain the impression that she is constantly pulling and pushing on an emotional level, there seems little doubt that she has managed to distill that inner anxiety and manic thought processes into something that makes perfect sense to many others out there; the imperfections in all of us laid bare before our very eyes and ears, but mostly delivered in an upbeat,and let's-have-a-bit-of-fun-even-though-deep-down-I-can-be-a-bit-miserable, fashion. One for the misfits, the outsiders, the misunderstood, the anxious, the angst-ridden, the uncertain, the silly, the fun-loving, the acerbic, and the anti-hero in us. That could be almost everyone…
Jeff Hemmings

Website: courtneybarnett.com.au
Facebook: facebook.com/courtneybarnettmusic
Twitter: twitter.com/courtneymelba