Shot through with the grain of an old film reel, Nathan Coutts returns with “Movie Star”, a brooding, slow-burning single which we are thrilled to be premiering, ahead of its arrival this Friday, 3rd July. It is the next piece of a story shaped by love, chance and quiet reflection, and an early window into his debut album The Ordinary Instant, due Friday 31st July.
Built on a laid-back beat and a prominent, roaming bass line, “Movie Star” moves through layers of overdriven guitar and textured, grainy production, its vintage warmth carrying a melancholic undercurrent throughout. Coutts threads classic R&B through a haze of Southern Gothic atmosphere, distorted vocals drifting across the arrangement like images caught in a stuttering projector beam. The result sits somewhere between soul, alternative folk and R&B, reflective and a little uneasy, with yearning and escapism pooling beneath the surface. It also gives me the Angus Stone vibes, with its hazy vocals and gentle pacing.
At its core, the song captures a feeling of disconnection, of outside pressures creeping into a relationship until it seems everyone can see what is coming before you can. It sits in the gap between what you sense and what you’ll admit, a prelude to the kind of miscommunication that feels almost predestined.
The track grew out of a life-changing road trip across the southern United States, a journey fuelled by romance and self-exploration that began with an unexpected encounter. Both “Movie Star” and The Ordinary Instant follow two people navigating a relationship as the world, and everyone in it, presses in, grappling with self-doubt, uncertainty and change. The album borrows its title from Joan Didion’s The Year of Magical Thinking and her observation that a life can change in an ordinary instant.
Reflecting on the album and the journey behind it, Coutts says:
“This is the story I was made to tell. The story I wanted to be a character in as a child. A story full of moments that feel impossible to dismiss as coincidence. The kind of story that is stranger than fiction, because these strange things happen all the time.”
Based in Naarm/Melbourne, Nathan Coutts is a multi-hyphenate artist: singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer and engineer. Blending alternative folk, soul and R&B, he has carved out a sound that is distinctly his own. For now, “Movie Star” lands as another frame flickering across a fading print, one more chapter of The Ordinary Instant before the album arrives in full on Friday 31st July.
You can keep up to date with Nathan Coutts via his website, Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok
Header image credit: Sean Smith
