By Henry Lipput
It’s hard to imagine someone in their twenties writing an album of songs like the ones on The Apartments’ In and Out of the Light (Riley Records/Talitres). Peter Milton Walsh has been part of the music scene in Australia since 1978 and the sad and beautiful new album is full of songs of regret, encouragement, and even anger that reflect experienced life (and love) lessons. And whether In and Out of the Light is a concept album about one relationship or a collection of songs about the many over the years that didn’t work out, it illustrates how there’s something worse than the hurt of a breakup: it’s the post-breakup that you have to live with.
The album was a global effort with Walsh and bass player Eliot Fish working with producer Tim Kevin in Sydney, French Apartments Natasha Penot and Antoine Chaperon recording their parts in various studios in France, English drummer Nick Allum working in London, and Chris Abrahams from Australia’s The Necks on piano.
In “Write Your Way Out Of Town” he encourages a former lover to move on by using her creativity: “Whatever it was that went wrong/She poured it into song/Whatever it was that went wrong/Write your way of town/Write your way out of sorrow.” And he’s hoping that this might be a way to bring them together again: “Could you write your way back to me some day?”
