COURTNEY BARNETT Australian anti-folk singer Courtney Barnett, 26, had the creative breakthrough of her career in her garden last year, gasping for breath during an asthma attack, as a chatty paramedic loaded her into the back of an ambulance. “Avant Gardener,” the witty, detail-rich song Barnett wrote about the experience, earned the former rock-club bartender fawning write-ups online, her first taste of overseas fame and a new deal with Mom + Pop Music.
After a slate of performances at CMJ Music Marathon last October, Barnett, who has self- released music in Melbourne since 2011, became the subject of intense label interest. Mom + Pop won the rights to rerelease her 2013 double-EP, The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas, in North America, licensing it from the United Kingdom’s Marathon…