Over the last eight years, Australian singer-songwriter Courtney Barnett has released three solid full-length albums that showcase her gifts as a musician and lyricist. Whether soft and introspective or fast and aggressive, one common element in Barnett’s songs has always been her witty lyrics, often featuring irony, rambling storytelling, and clever wordplay. None of that is present on her fourth album, End of the Day (music from the film Anonymous Club)
Neither is the rock and folk music or any recognizable song structure. The instrumental album was recorded as the soundtrack for Anonymous Club, a 2021 documentary film about Barnett directed by Danny Cohen. During the recording session, Barnett was joined by Stella Mozgawa, best known for her drumming with Warpaint and Kurt Vile. Barnett and Mozgawa improvised the music in the studio while watching the final cut of the film.
Cohen wanted the score to be subtle. “Nothing too maudlin, obvious or instructive, nothing to tell the future audience how they should be feeling about Barnett’s life onscreen,” Cohen told Rolling Stone.
With those instructions in mind, Barnett and Mozgawa crafted a score focusing on tone and atmosphere with few grandiose moments. The 17 songs on End of the Day all blend together, and if listened to without looking at the track names, they seem like one forty-minute song.
An ever-present drone permeates each song and connects one track to the next. The songs are mostly subtle swells, sparse guitar arpeggios, and a lot of empty space. The score works in its context as part of the documentary, but as an album, it’s little more than atmospheric background music.
The main problem is that, while Barnett is a talented songwriter, she’s far from an instrumental virtuoso. The music sounds improvised, but not like a tight jazz band, so much as like musicians warming up before a show.
“Start Somewhere” begins the album with a swirling drone and guitar strumming using a chorus effect. As the song transitions into “Life Balance,” slow, twangy arpeggios drenched in reverb take to the forefront, each picked note echoing and slowly fading out.
Many of the songs have a dreamy atmosphere. Others sound perfect for a film’s meditative scenes, recalling large, open countrysides with soft music that seems to expand forever as if Barnett or the listener is the only one around for miles.
Though the songs on End of the Day fuze and intertwine by design, some are more interesting. “Two Circles Reflecting” has an otherworldly feel, with a synth line that pulses and coils. The harsh, discordant guitar, played with the most distortion on the album, gives “Intro” an ominous tone. The low, rumbling notes on “Like Water” clash with the high notes that throb and scrape along the sonic landscape to an eerie effect.
End of the Day is a bit of an enigma. Fans of Anonymous Club may enjoy the atmospheric score and recall some of their favorite accompanying scenes from the documentary. For everyone else, there’s not much to get out of it. With Barnett’s music stripped of her witty lyrics, entertaining stories, and rock sensibilities, there’s not much left to enjoy. End of the Day succeeds in creating the atmosphere Cohen wanted for the film but has little to offer outside that context.
