Courting

Indie rockers from Liverpool, Courting play music that squares tuneful, energetic melodies against arrangements that incorporate plenty of jagged guitar sounds and off-kilter electronic textures, resulting in a sound that’s both upbeat and cleverly chaotic. On their 2022 debut album Guitar Music, Courting delivered a set of witty tunes featuring deadpan satirical lyrics that meshed with tunes that suggest a joyous sense of self-sabotage, covering the most accessible aspects of their music with a veneer of sonic contortion that’s imaginative and compelling.
Courting came together in 2018, featuring Sean Murphy-O’Neill on guitar and vocals, Michael Downes on guitar, Sam Brennan on bass, and Sean Thomas on drums and vocals. When they started, all four of them were still teenagers (Murphy-O’Neill was only 16), and their initial influences included IDLES, Parquet Courts, Pavement, and LCD Soundsystem, as well as Brit-pop icons Blur and Pulp. Murphy-O’Neill began writing songs when he was a 14-year-old dubstep fan, and soon after Courting began rehearsing, he started writing new material with his bandmates. In June 2019, Courting released their first track, “Not Yr Man,” and a second, “Football,” followed in January 2020. The group earned positive press for May 2020′s “David Byrne’s Badside,” an observation on coming to terms with one’s racist friends; the song was later given vinyl release on a single with “Football.” December 2020 brought their next track, “Popshop!,” a witty commentary on the balance of art and commerce. Courting issued the song “Grand National” as a stand-alone track in March 2021 before making it available as part of a four-song EP (also titled Grand National) one month later. By this time, Courting started earning a reputation as a live act, but the COVID-19 pandemic took them off the road, and beyond playing a few virtual shows, they focused on writing songs and blocking out plans for their debut album. In April 2022, Courting brought out a new track, “Tennis.” It turned out to be the first preview of their first LP, the eight-song Guitar Music, released by Nice Swan Recordings in September 2022. ~ Mark Deming