Sean Murphy-O'Neill is on a train. Not metaphorically, not in a 'the grind never stops' way. Just literally, physically, on a train. "It's good," he confirms. "I'm currently on a train." That's the whole vibe with Courting, really. Always in motion, often heading somewhere specific, occasionally just along for the ride.

Their new track, 'the twins (1969)', is the first fresh release since their dense, fractured, brilliant third album - their third in three years, no less - 'Lust For Life (Or: How To Thread The Needle And Come Out The Other Side To Tell The Story)'. It's a sharp, simmering number - direct, brooding, wound tight with grief and frustration. Or maybe it's just a riff on a Stooges title. As with most things Courting do, the answer is somewhere between deadly serious and wilfully unserious.

"I can't say for sure," Sean says when asked who the twins are, and what exactly went down in '69. "It's really open for interpretation - the bracketed part of the title is just another wink to Iggy Pop & The Stooges' track of the same name."

What we do know is this: the song has been floating around since the 'Lust For Life' sessions, and while it didn't make the final cut, it shares the same DNA. It "just didn't quite fit into the concept of the record," Sean explains, "hard to have symmetry with an odd number of tracks."

Symmetry, for this band, isn't just a vibe: it's a principle. "If the title is going to be in two parts, then surely you split the album in two, you split the songs in two, you only use two colours," Sean reasons. "I think these little things just happen; it's playing into a part and committing to what you're making."

'the twins (1969)' does eventually earn its spot thematically, by being, in typical Courting fashion, both deceptively simple and quietly fractured. "It comes from a similar mindset as 'After You'; it's pretty straight to the point," Sean says. "In hindsight, though, I've developed a second respect for it in the fact that it is essentially split into two parts, which makes it similar to the album in that regard."

It's also likely to be the last we hear from them for a little while. "I think we're going away for a while after this," Sean admits. "Four albums in four years doesn't have the same ring to it." But they're not completely vanishing. When pressed for a cryptic teaser, Sean offers up: "A break up, a really long album, some reinterpretations." At least one of those is probably true. Maybe two.

There's a certain level of myth-making baked into Courting's identity: self-awareness without cynicism, theatre without pretension. Even the band can't quite keep track of what's a bit and what's gospel. "I feel like everything blends together these days," Sean says. "It's almost hard to tell what jokes we've told and what we've come to believe ourselves."

So when they launch into another semi-serious scheme or performance-art-adjacent rollout, don't expect a focus group behind it. "Honestly, all natural," Sean insists. "I never really see the things we do as 'promo', but maybe just artefacts from the art we're making. Like, if the music has to thematically be a theatrical play, then of course there have to be paparazzi shots and fictional characters, etc."

Does it work as promotion? "I'm also not sure if any of that has ever promotionally benefitted us, but it's definitely fun to do." There may or may not be a list on Sean's phone of 'things that might wind people up a little bit'. Obviously.

Right now, the band are decompressing after a proper lap of the States; headlining, selling out rooms, touring with Geese. In between, they're focused on wrestling, Swell Maps, the Stones, Captain Beefheart and Cities Aviv. It's the kind of mix that makes perfect sense once you've heard the band. Still, if you forced Sean to write a new song right this second, his theme would be very on-brand: "A fictional motocross rider, but I can't tell you their name."

Writing, at least, comes naturally these days. "At some point, it stops being an exercise or task for me; it comes solely from intuition, and it's like doing a jigsaw puzzle," he says. "Sometimes I'll just slot things together and I know it's right, whether other people think it's right or not is irrelevant to me… It's just working from what feels right on a physical level." Production, though? A different beast. "Producing songs only seems to get harder. We are all burdened with more ideas and more technology, and therefore less time to try it all."

Where, exactly, does that leave Courting in the grand scheme of things? "I think we're still in phase 3," Sean says, without elaboration. As for what's next? "We're not quite finished yet."

Courting's single 'the twins (1969)' is out now.