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.