The Courettes – Here Are The Courettes

I know I’m not unusual in occasionally getting obsessed with an artist I’ve discovered on YouTube – the algorithm pushes me something remarkable, I browse through nearly everything they have to offer, add them to some playlists, and play them over and over – but nearly always on YouTube. It’s often the videos that make these songs, and without the images, the music is perfectly fine, but not necessarily anything I’m going to listen to when I don’t have the TV up. And because nearly all my music listening these days is vinyl, even if there’s someone I find out about through YouTube, they’d have to have vinyl available to get into my rotation.

That’s why it’s all the more remarkable that when the algorithm suddenly fed me The Courettes back in February (2024), I lost my mind. Here was something like I hadn’t heard in years – and yet, for an act with that old school sound, it didn’t seem like a nostalgia act. They’re playing the old ’60s garage rock/girl group/wall of sound thing, but they mean it, and they completely own it. I listened over and over on YouTube, and then had to ask myself, are they really that good? Because if they are, I need them on vinyl. They were, and I did. So in very short order, I grabbed some of their back catalog. As usual, a group that is completely new to me goes back years – this first album was originally released in 2015.

Holy cats! This husband/wife Danish/Brazilian duo are simply fire. An absolute rave-up, and I love the bold stance of “I Wanna Be Your Yoko Ono.” What an introduction.