I came in on this one. This is the CD I found in an import bin here that made me a fan of The Apartments in the first place some 26 years ago. I had some vague knowledge that Peter Milton Walsh had a connection to The Go-Betweens and that was enough for me. I bought A Life Full of Farewells (1995) without having heard a word but the titles also intrigued me. Luckily the music lived up to those. Now reissued by Talitres, this overlooked masterpiece is seeing its first release here on vinyl, and as a download, along with a remastered CD.
On this record, Peter Walsh really perfected the sound of The Apartments. Things are elegant, but loose, and what's here is both chamber pop and indie. It's the sort of release that for those of us who love Tallulah and A Walk Across the Rooftops should also strike similar chords. "Things You'll Keep" sounds like a Grant McLennan solo song written by Robert Forster, while "You Became My Big Excuse" faintly echoes The Blue Nile, though it's not nearly as spacious a track. Walsh favors both strings, and guitar hooks here, and the effect is like a down-tempo riff on what was on 16 Lovers Lane from his buddies in The Go-Betweens.
And what that all means is that these are obviously pop songs, but ones which blend an intimacy with big swooning melodies. The effect of "Thanks for Making Me Beg", for example, confirms that Walsh owns some Love records, even as the cut blends a catchy hook with complicated emotions. There are pieces of this, like the rolling undercurrent that carries "Paint the Days White", that suggests Walsh's ambitions at the time were pointing him towards making a bigger record, but the the music throughout A Life Full of Farewells is so perfectly pitched and tenderly realized, that the resulting LP retains a quiet power that few other releases in the era had. I almost envy someone who comes to this fresh, as it's still the sort of thing that strikes a chord and makes one want to find and play everything Peter Milton Walsh has ever touched.
A Life Full of Farewells is out now via Talitres.
More details on The Apartments via the official website.