When Martin Courtney was a teenager, he knew how to get lost. In the late ‘90s and early 2000s, there’s Martin, 17 or 18, loaded into a car with friends, stoned and aimless. They’re navigating the suburban sprawl of New Jersey with no destination in mind.
It’s a densely settled wooded area, Courtney explains. “There’s so many towns you can drive for 15 minutes and have no clue where you are,” he says, sitting in his home studio in Beacon, New York, where he wrote the songs that make up Magic Sign, the second solo album from the Real Estate songwriter.