Robert Forster, The Candle and the Flame ★★★★☆
As one half of 80s Australian indie-pop group, The Go-Betweens, Forster has never tasted the success critics fervently predicted for him. Initially flamboyant yet literate and acutely observed, Forster’s songs were always strikingly direct compared to the moody complexity of those written by his partner, Grant McLennan. As he unflinchingly detailed in his 2016 memoir, Grant and I, the band’s first incarnation fell apart in despair at their own commercial failure in 1989, while the second ended in 2006 in deeper tragedy, as McLennan passed away aged 48 amid problems with alcoholism and depression.
Forster all too humbly paints himself as a modest talent next to his late foil’s melodic genius, yet this eighth solo outing is packed as ever with minimal, carefully chiselled, acoustic-thrumming arrangements, topped by extraordinary lyric writing.
In this instance, The Candle and the Flame was sparked by horrendous adversity, as he and his wife of 32 years, Karin Bäumler, sought to busy themselves with something constructive at home in Brisbane, in the wake of her diagnosis with ovarian cancer.
The opening song, She’s a Fighter, rousingly urges Bäumler to triumph over the invasive condition. The second, Tender Years, also honours their story together (“her beauty has not withered from her entrance in Chapter One”, etc), but soon Forster broaches more universal subject matters – the memories triggered by a concert ticket stub found in a jacket pocket (There’s a Reason to Live), the pathways we habitually travel (The Roads) and the non-linear eccentricity in our temporal perception (I Don’t Do Drugs, I Do Time).
At the last on When I was a Young Man, our hero, now 65, breezily reflects on his early career, his idols (including Television’s Tom Verlaine, who died last weekend), and how he ended up “unsung, unheralded and undone”. Throughout, though, this is a record all about not giving in, about the strength of the human spirit, and its unflagging warmth leaves you willing Bäumler on to recovery, and the Forster household to the happiness they deserve. Andrew Perry
Young Fathers, Heavy Heavy ★★★★☆
Young Fathers, the Scottish three-piece composed of Graham ‘G’ Hastings, Kayus Bankole and Alloysious Massaquoi have always challenged their audiences. They first emerged in the Edinburgh music scene, making odd, genre-blending music that caught the attention of music lovers who were searching for other freaks. Musically, the percussion rains lawlessly, guitars janky, vocals sometimes guttural and disorderly. Lyrically, they tell stories coloured by their experiences of a ‘Broken Britain’, Black life and socio-political issues with unfiltered clarity that some may find intimidating.
The prospects and ambitions for success were too lofty for them to be sequestered to Edinburgh city lines, and as they emerged beyond them, their music disarmed people instantly, demanding to be listened to. Signing with Big Dada – the home of other alternative odd-folk like Roots Manuva and Kae Tempest – they released their debut album Dead and went on to win the Mercury Music Prize in 2014.
The follow up White Men Are Black Men Too further explored identity and politics with similar insubordination. Third album Cocoa Sugar remained political but accessible, dealing with the plight of refugees and the imaginary borders placed that embody racism.
Heavy Heavy, however, strikes a new chord. While still experimental and agonising over the state of the world, it seems to come from a place of joy: it’s radical liberation. Geronimo, for example, is like an oblique lullaby: “I’m on the verge of something divine, it’s going to keep me inline”, Hastings raps, sitting on a whirring melody and ending in the triumphant, declarative yell of “get up!”.
Rather than looking to secondary musical influences, they’re searching for the source: the embryonic building blocks of sound, that on this record, have taken them around the world. Ulutation is a case in point, taking its name from tradition of the high pitched howl and trill that is common in music native to some African, Middle Eastern and Asian countries, and expressed in the song itself.
Young Fathers have always been difficult to catagorise, and with Heavy Heavy, it’s clear they’re still pushing boundaries. Michelle Kambasha
