On Oct. 13, 2017, Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile released their collaborative album Lotta Sea Lice. Since then, the album and its leading single “Over Everything” have become staples in the alternative and indie music scenes, with Vile and Barnett being the most adored rock duo in a post-White Stripes world. Every October, I find myself coming back to the album, reminiscing on this year’s changes as a new one approaches. Now, in a season of personal reflection, I naively wonder, what’s so great about it anyway?
The album is the perfect mixture of its respective creators: Barnett merging the soft melancholy musings of “Boxing Day Blues” (in an almost mockingly, singer-songwriter fashion) with the kick of her prior “Pedestrian at Best,” and Kurt Vile riding on the echo of his fender, pushing a transfigured sound with remnants of his War on Drugs sensibilities.
“Over Everything” is about songs and lives infected with sound. It is the beginning of the pair’s musical rapport; they tell us their stories and empathies, just as they would tell each other. They end their exchange with “Untogether.” They use the word to refer to something irreparably broken and the song as a reminder that some things cannot be changed, saved, or kept, as you cannot “hold the impossibly / Untogether.”
Their compositions match the album’s cover: the two sit, turned towards each other, though looking at us, Kurt against a dark background wearing white, and Courtney dressed in black against a light background. Their names are mismatched and their guitars break through the center’s divide. The album is a musical ‘yin and yang.’
In August, Barnett, in collaboration with the band, released her version of Chastity Belt’s “Different Now” and Vile, on Oct. 25, released his version of the band’s “This Time of Night.” The split single puts the two in the same role, sitting parallel, and perhaps serves as a beacon of hope to those of us asking, “is originality really dead?” Barnett and Vile are old souls providing us with evidence that there can, in fact, be originality through inspiration, conversation, and replication.
In its sound, the album is, at its core, a lyrical conversation between two oddballs, even to each other, in a world of their own. Just as the October skies bring change and a soft resentment for the summer (it has gone too soon), Barnett and Vile bring us a reminder of the odd idiosyncrasies that really move us and keep us keeping on through cold weather.