Courting

Courting’s debut album ‘Guitar Music’ comes on the heels of their debut EP "Grand National", which saw them earn plaudits across a wide array of media for their boisterous, whip smart lyrics and angular instrumentation.

Whilst “Tennis” provided a first taste of this new musical evolution, “Loaded” perfectly exemplifies how the band are deconstructing their sonic template in order to playfully piece it back together whilst toying with new sounds, textures, and songwriting techniques. There is still very much a backbone to the track, one in which the melody still seeps through along with an infectious groove, but it is overlayed with experimentation. Chaos, noise, and distortion all coalesce to create a clattering and intense concoction of sound which combines driving basslines, smatterings of electronic idiosyncrasies, autotuned vocals, and unpredictable instrumentation.

Whilst the album follows closely on the back the EP, the new material sees the band making a marked step in a new direction, exploring more dynamically expressive songwriting than ever before. This new approach to songwriting is key to the whole ethos of the new record, which was produced by double GRAMMY nominated producer James Dring (Gorillaz, Jamie T, Sorry, Lana Del Rey, Blur, Loyle Carner).

Going on to speak on the album Murphy-O’Neill says: “Guitar Music is the opposite of our early releases in that it is very emotional. The stories told may be from the perspective of other characters at times, but these songs are always filled with actual feelings. We're no longer trying to hide that.

We felt that Guitar Music as a phrase was reductive and therefore decided to create a record with the intention of it being a body of work that could redeem being a “guitar band”, by pushing it to different boundaries. To us, this record is a statement piece, it felt very exciting to make, to us, it feels a lot more special than we’d originally expected it would be.”

Guitar Music is realising you actually love the music you hated when you were 13. It is lip fillers and being thousands of pounds in debt. It is missing mundane things about your childhood and mourning celebrities you were only aware of posthumously. It is dancing with your friends. It is falling in love with a drawing and it is always online. It is touching toes in bed, hearts carved into trees. It is swimming outside and listening to pop smoke. It is fireworks over family parks and"