The Apartments

Just got the weekly new release email from Parasol Records and see that the Apartments have released their first new album since 1998. They're a band I've never actually heard but have always been interested in due to their tangential connections to the Go-Betweens and Triffids. Anyone (Aitch...?) got the skinny on them? Are they worth checking out and if so, where would be the best place to start?



Post Edited (08-10-11 10:42)

I'm ashamed to admit I still only know about them because of "The Shyest Time" from the Some Kind of Wonderful s/t. That's where most people first heard of them.

I've got A Life Full of Regrets. I've always liked it but never really loved it. I probably haven't given it enough spins over the years for it to really take hold. If you dig the aforementioned Go-Betweens and (especially) the Triffids, you'll probably dig the Apartments as well.

I'm interested in the new one - maybe new music will kick me off the fence.

Edit: It's just a 45, I see. Not enough to get me to spend 9 bucks. But I'll still keep an ear out.



Post Edited (08-10-11 11:48)

Just a 45? Well, that's anticlimactic for an announcement of "First New Release since 1998!" touted by Parasol.

But still, I'm interested in whether the old stuff is worth checking out. Sounds like "eh, why not?"

A Life Full of Regrets can usually be found fairly cheap. Definitely worth taking a chance on, I think.

Of course, I say that about nearly all Australian bands. I don't know what it is about that country's rock that I feel such a kinship with. What's in the water down there, Aitch?

Hell, I'm listening to an Australian band (Wagons) right now.

Package Tours that'll never be:

The Apartments
The Rentals
The Flatmates

I never saw 'em but used to listen to Drift a bit, back in the day. Pretty nice and jangly, wouldn't have been out of place on Postcard.

I did see Peter Milton-Walsh's between bands project Out Of Nowhere who were much much darker and put out a great single and vanished.

"Wouldn't have been out of place on Postcard" - now there is a recommendation that I can get excited about. I'll definitely track down their old stuff now.

I'm planning to be in Champaign/Urbana on Saturday, so hopefully Parasol will have some of the old stuff in stock.

9 years later.....

Am I going senile or did TP once have an entry for The Apartments?

Anyway, following up the brilliant album from 2015, Peter Milton Walsh has another one coming out next month. Check it out.

[www.theapartments-music.com]

I too thought there was an entry, but there is not. I intend to correct that in the near future, as I’ve become a big fan in the last few years.

I'll have more to say when I do the entry, but I will say this: few songwriters do grief as well as Peter Milton Walsh. He lost his son to a rare auto-immune disease back in 1999 (hence the long wait between albums), and addressed in a very beautiful but matter-of-fact way on "Twenty One" and "Swap Places" on No Song No Spell No Madrigal. Having just lost my beloved niece to leukemia this week, I found the latter pretty devastating when it came on the live Apartments album (Live at L'Ubu) I've been listening to of late. But it's a good devastation - coming from a very real place, and one that I can certainly relate to right now. That kind of sadness is comforting right now.

Sorry to hear about your niece, Michael.

"Twenty One" is particularly tough to listen to, but now that I know the loss behind it it's even more devastating.

MT - please do!

The goal is to play catch up on my currently published entries (which will be particularly challenging for prolific MFs like the Black Watch, the Green Pajamas, and Steven Wilson), then start on some new ones (the Apartments, the Chamber Strings, Coliseum, the Music Lovers, the Coffee Sergeants). I know I'm not the only one, so it makes me wonder if we should start a thread with our intentions, so there aren't conflicts.

MT - please do!