You could see Courtney Barnett dressing up as Cousin Itt for Halloween. On a Tuesday night in L.A.'s Echo Park, she’s onstage, but she’s not billed. She’s part of someone else’s band. Her hair engulfs her face while she thrashes her own neck around the neck of her guitar, flicking her fingers across the fretboard in the style only she does, coming up for air every once in a while. Her leader for the evening is Australian singer-songwriter Jen Cloher, who is speak-singing a stinging number that's a cross between Patti Smith and Nirvana. It's called “Great Australian Bite.” “We’re all from Down Under, where no-one hears our thunder / Signing shitty deals just to make it work,” go the lyrics. A satisfied smile appears over Cloher's face. This is her first American gig, despite a decade of independently releasing records, and it's sold out.

On Cloher's right stands Barnett, her guitarist, undeniably the biggest breakout singer-songwriter of an Aussie generation. It's certainly not Barnett's first American gig. In fact, last time Barnett played in America, it was Philadelphia rocker Kurt Vile to her left. The pair released an acclaimed joint album—Lotta Sea Lice—last year, and on it Barnett covered Cloher's torch song “Fear Is Like a Forest.” Prior to that, Barnett ended her final shows touring for her charmed, grunge-y 2015 debut album Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit with a performance on SNL. Or, rather, two performances on the season finale of SNL, which—if you tuned in—felt like something out of MTV Unplugged's golden era. Never was that level of commercial crossover the plan. Struggling artists from Melbourne's DIY scene don't count on that.

Barnett, 14 years Cloher's junior, is also her “wife” (they've yet to have a wedding under Australia's new legislation, but Barnett reckons they will “as a token of our love”). They're also business partners running a label—Milk!—together in Melbourne. They co-parent Bubbles the cat, who decorates the home screen on Barnett's iPhone and appears in sticker form on the inside of her Fender Telecaster. Tonight, Barnett jams next to Cloher as she rips into the songs. This is Barnett in purest form. No spotlight, no pressure, just music. “I always feel on the edge of falling apart on Jen's stage,” she says earlier, substantiating that with: “Which is a great feeling.” Barnett, 30, leaves sentences half finished, like her thoughts. She comes back to them later if they're worth figuring out.

You wouldn't recognize Barnett tonight unless you already knew she'd be on stage. She likes it that way. The night she was nominated for a Grammy (2016's Best New Artist; she lost to Meghan Trainor), I stumbled upon her in a bowling alley. Granted, it was a bowling alley inside the Roosevelt, but it still struck me as the only after-party during the music industry's so-called biggest night of the year that Barnett could possibly wind up at. Those whirlwind breakout years never changed her. The adulation, acceptance, recognition, and tedious labeling of her as an era's “female Bob Dylan” took her by shock. The ensuing imposter syndrome made her feel inadequate and distrusting. Her friends were surprised to see it deplete her confidence.

That's just one reason why her second album title is loaded with forthright spunk. Tell Me How You Really Feel is her most direct statement yet. But in many ways, it's a statement she's angling back at herself, looking in the mirror, psyching herself up for another trip around the sun.