Robert Forster

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRlOskUcH70

Co-founder of The Go-Betweens and responsible for a truly singular catalogue in guitar music, the Australian songwriter remains a niche concern

‘Inferno’ is acclaimed Australian singer-songwriter Robert Forster‘s first solo album in 4 years – his second album over the last eleven years. Forster only makes records when he feels he has the songs – on ‘Inferno’, he has 9 he totally believes in.

They range from the exhilarating top ten pop of ‘Inferno (Brisbane In Summer)’, the beach shack groove of ‘Life Has Turned a Page’, via ‘Remain’s 1977 New York strut, to finish in a way that this concise, brilliant, drama and wit filled album only can – on the big build epic ‘One Bird In The Sky’.

‘Inferno’ was made in Berlin in 2018, during the hottest German summer in decades. Noted producer/engineer Victor Van Vugt (Beth Orton ‘Trailor Park’, P J Harvey ‘Stories of the City, Stories from the Sea’), recorded the album; the first time he and Forster had worked together since Van Vugt engineered Forster’s debut solo album classic ‘Danger In The Past’ in Berlin in 1990.

‘Inferno’ in its making is a perfect mix of the familiar and the new. Also working with Forster again, are Brisbane based multi-instrumentalists Scott Bromiley and Karin Bãumler from ‘Songs To Play’ (2015). While, new recruits are drummer Earl Havin (Tindersticks, Mary J. Blige) and keyboardist Michael Muhlhaus (Blumfeld, Kante). Four musicians from the corners of the world, who, with Van Vugt’s bold and beautiful production, sound like a band of the ages. In front of them, Forster delivers the best vocal performances of his career.