It is an altogether refreshing thing to meet someone on their first trip to a new country. Through their eyes, you get to strip disillusionment from your own and experience your home anew. Courtney Barnett was not only on her first trip to New York City, she was on her first trip anywhere when we met at the top of Prospect Park in Brooklyn to wander and record songs from her recently released Avant Gardener EP.

Sporting an unplugged hollow body and marveling at the surplus of squirrel activity in the area, we strolled through the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch in the Grand Army Plaza, skirting teens periodically splashed by what remains of the Bailey Fountain, wisdom and felicity keeping a watchful eye above Neptune and Triton.

Later in the week, I catch up with Courtney in the STI-infested hole that is 285 Kent and marvel as she tears through the false image of a wallflower with her full band and with full ferocity. The audience is all smiles and surprise, she leaves the stage and shortly thereafter leaves for London to add stamp number two to an otherwise virgin passport.

Originally published November 25th, 2013 // La Blogotheque