The flexibility to attract out the extraordinary from the on a regular basis is one evergreen hallmark of partaking songwriting. Robert Forster has been sketching self-contained emotional vignettes and spinning semi-autobiographical yarns since his days in The Go-Betweens, the Antipodean high-water mark of guitar jangle. On his ninth solo album, Strawberries, Forster as soon as once more knits collectively the peculiar and the exceptional, furring the perimeters with a craftsman’s dexterity.
Take “Breakfast On The Practice”, among the many most involving songs this storied chronicler of the center has ever penned. Starting with simply his guitar and laconic drawl, Forster spins out the story of an evening of loud lodge intercourse right into a poignant epic – humorous, dry, filled with element, instructed on reflection over practically eight elegant minutes as different musicians swell surreptitiously round him.
Aristotelian unities are at play – one evening, plus breakfast; numerous places in Edinburgh, selective contexts, nothing extraneous. “Fuck!” exclaims one of many lovers within the morning, a uncommon occasion of earthy language in Forster’s catalogue, in sharp distinction to all Forster’s phrase decisions all through.
All of it ends on the 9.04 practice. “Love is usually a profitable recreation,” muses the all-seeing narrator; who sounds as stunned as Forster’s veteran listeners at this glad flip of occasions. We by no means do discover out the results of the “rugby recreation on the town” which, alongside the climate, performs as out as a subplot to the tune’s motion.
The opposite seven tracks on this self-contained album are not any slouches both. Just a few are wistful, not least the unrequited love tune, “Silly I Know”, instructed from the standpoint of a queer protagonist. However the total feeling right here is certainly one of playfulness: Strawberries finds Forster in an exploratory temper, making an attempt novel issues out with a newish band. Some concepts are extra absolutely realised than others – the bells on “Such A Disgrace”, for one, makes this touring musician’s lament surprisingly Christmassy. (Extra dry wit: “Why can’t you simply play the hits?” moans a supervisor to the musician.) However Forster’s modifications of perspective, of tempo – somewhat nation, somewhat rockabilly on “Good To Cry” – hold issues transferring briskly.
Extra unities of house and time come into play, too. These songs had been rehearsed and recorded in lower than a month at Stockholm’s Ingrid Studios in autumn 2024 with producer and guitarist Peter Morén (Peter, Bjorn & John), Jonas Thorell on bass and Magnus Olsson on drums, musicians who had beforehand served as Forster’s backing band on Scandinavian excursions in 2017 and 2019. The Hammond organ on tracks like “Breakfast On The Practice” and the sax and woodwinds – “Diamonds”, “All Of The Time” – had been provided by extra fluent gamers from the prolonged Stockholm scene.
Satirically, maybe, Strawberries does really mark a return to extra regular programming after Forster’s final outing, a document additionally extraordinary in its personal approach. The Candle And The Flame (2023) was recorded partly at residence and partly within the studio, in bursts between the rounds of chemotherapy Forster’s companion Karin Bäumler was present process on the time. Their son Louis featured on electrical guitar.
Bäumler is now effectively once more, duetting with Forster on the title observe like a extra Pollyanna-ish Nico, involved on the destiny of a punnet of ripe fruit. However within the interstices of Strawberries you sense the lengthy highway travelled; a delicate gratitude in a few of Forster’s asides.
The Beatley romp “Good To Cry” finds characters weeping cathartically in numerous locales – on an island, in a restaurant. However we’re not in disaster mode anymore. The breezy title observe, indebted to The Lovin’ Spoonful, repeatedly wonders “what can peculiar be?” with a way of blithe curiosity. Louis Forster’s eloquent guitar cameo on “Such A Disgrace” is one other delicate hyperlink between then and now.
All of Forster’s explorations come to a head with “Diamonds”, a love tune which begins as a form of Velvet Underground pastorale, however swiftly pushes out in all instructions. Forster’s voice turns into a strangled falsetto; atonal parts kick in, scoring the massive emotions Forster is wrestling with earlier than it climaxes within the skronk of Lina Langendorf’s free jazz sax. “Every part is sweet!/Lay down your arms!” Forster half-yells, half croons – to himself, you believe you studied, as a lot as anybody else.
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