Liverpool four-piece Courting have released their debut album “Guitar Music” (Play It Again Sam). The album follows their recent critically acclaimed singles “Loaded”, “Tennis”, and “Jumper“, as well as a number of festival appearances including a packed out performance on the Festival Republic stage at Reading & Leeds Festival, where the band launched a number of branded tennis balls into the audience.
“Guitar Music” comes on the heels of Courting’s 2021 debut EP “Grand National”, which saw them earn plaudits across a wide array of media for their boisterous, whip smart lyrics and angular instrumentation. The release saw them land two singles on the BBC Radio 6 Music Playlist (including an A list), as well as coverage in multiple end of year lists including NME 100, Dork Hype List 2022, Daily Star Ones To Watch 2021 & DIY Hello 2021, and more. However, 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.
Whilst “Tennis” provided a first taste of this new musical evolution, “Loaded”, and “Jumper” went on to exemplify 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. To mark the release of the new album, Courting have also shared another track titled “Famous”. Combining heavily effected guitars, electronic idiosyncrasies, anthemic backing vocals, and sardonic lyrics about the tropes of modern life and growing up, the track is a perfect summation of the band’s musical direction and their focus on looking to redefine what has come to be expected from modern guitar-based music.
Speaking on the new song, frontman Murphy-O’Neill says, “Famous is about growing up, finding comfort in smaller things, It is a song about nights forgotten and days of just watching sitcoms with your friends. Musically, we wanted to create something truly euphoric, something we could cry to. We intended for this song to be the centerpiece of the record, a bit like a carousel.”
Courting also recently announced details of their UK tour in Autumn 2022. Having cemented themselves as a must-see live act, the dates follow a number of sold-out headline shows and performances alongside the likes of Sports Team, Wet Leg, Los Bitchos, Bob Vylan, and FEET, as well as appearances at the likes of Reading & Leeds Festival, Wide Eyed Festival, Latitude, Truck Festival, Live At Leeds, Community Festival, and The Great Escape.
Their full live dates can be found here.
This new approach to songwriting exemplified on “Famous” 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 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 and and and and…
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 filled with actual emotion rather than us trying to hide.
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 out now on Play It Again Sam and is available on LP, CD, cassette, and digitally. There are also exclusive formats available directly via the Courting store including an LP with limited coloured flexi disk and exclusive CDs with additional unreleased audio.
Find out more and order here.
