Courtney Barnett has shared a cruisy new single titled ‘If I Don’t Hear From You Tonight’, announcing alongside it a suite of tour dates for her native Australia.

Leaning further into her folk and country influences, the new track shines with twangy lead guitars and soaring vocal harmonies, a dry and punchy bassline thumping along in the background. It arrives with a video fittingly set in the Californian desert, with Barnett and her band playing the song on an idyllic ranch studded with cacti.

Check out the video for ‘If I Don’t Hear From You Tonight’, directed by Claire Marie Vogel, below:

In a press release, Barnett explained that her latest single was written after she’d had a change of heart towards the tried-and-true concept of the love song.

“I think my stance in the past was like, ‘There’s so many love songs and they don’t mean anything,’ but there’s something really special about zooming in on a moment and capturing it,” she said. “[The song] comes from the state of where my head was at – trying to communicate honestly instead of keeping [my feelings] guarded.”

‘If I Don’t Hear From You Tonight’ comes as the fourth single from Barnett’s third solo album, ‘Things Take Time, Take Time’, joining ‘Rae Street’, ‘Before You Gotta Go’ and ‘Write A List Of Things To Look Forward To’. The album is slated to land this Friday (November 12) via Marathon Artists.

NME has given the record a four-star review ahead of its release, with writer El Hunt saying that “partly as a consequence of being written and recorded during the pandemic ‘Things Take Time, Take Time’ is sparer than Barnett’s previous records, pairing jangly, lackadaisical indie-rock with scatterings of drum machine”.

In an effort to get her fans more involved with the album’s release, Barnett launched an interactive stem mixer for ‘Things Take Time, Take Time’, allowing fans to “listen & play around” with tracks from the album. Built and designed by Raphael Ong and Sean Lim, it operates similarly to Kanye West‘s previously announced ‘DONDA’ stem player.

Barnett will launch her new album live shortly after its release, with a sprawling North American tour starting at the end of this month and running until mid-February. She announced today (November 9) that her US run will be followed by a string of dates in Australia – come March, she’ll hit stages in Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney.

Tickets for the new set of Australian tour dates are on sale from 10am local time this Friday, with a presale running from 9am tomorrow (November 11).

Earlier this year, Barnett teamed up with Vagabon to cover Tim Hardin’s ‘Reason To Believe’ and Sharon Van Etten’s ‘Don’t Do It’. August also saw her drop a cover of ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror’ by The Velvet Underground, and last month, she released ‘Smile Real Nice’, an original theme song for a new animated adaptation of Harriet The Spy.

Courtney Barnett’s 2022 Australian tour dates* are:

MARCH
Thursday 10 – Perth, The Astor
Thursday 17 – Melbourne, The Forum
Saturday 26 – Brisbane, The Tivoli

* A show in Sydney was also announced, though its details are yet to be announced