Liverpool four-piece Courting have shared a new single titled “Jumper”. The track follows their recent return with details of their much-anticipated debut album “Guitar Music”, which is due out 23rd September via Play It Again Sam, as well as their recent critically acclaimed singles “Loaded” and “Tennis”.
The new album 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” went on to perfectly 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. “Jumper” continues to see the band push the envelope by combining 90s indie-pop inflected guitars which warp and riff around frontman Sean Murphy-O’Neill’s anthemic vocals with moments of electronic experimentation and smatterings of wonky instrumental idiosyncrasies.
Speaking on the new single, frontman Murphy-O’Neill says,
“Jumper is an outlier on the album. It is a gentle story of true unrequited love, meant to playout like a 2006 romcom. It is about growing old and believing everything will fall into place, the mundanity of doing dishes, and leaving oppositional film reviews.”
Referencing Charli XCX, and possessing the kind of instrumentation that the band suggest “should be able to pay off their student loans.” the band describe “Jumper” as their “pop moment”.
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, FEET, and more. Following packed-out appearances at the likes of Latitude, Truck Festival, Live At Leeds, Community Festival, and The Great Escape, Courting will also play further festivals this summer including 110 Above, Reading & Leeds Festival, Wide Eyed Festival, and more.
Their full live dates can be found here.
This new approach to songwriting exemplified on “Jumper” 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”
“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.”
“Jumper” is further proof that the new direction and approach to composing on “Guitar Music” only stands to accentuate Courting’s propensity for captivating and melodic songwriting whilst never being content to rest on their laurels.
