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40 SONGS OVER 2 NIGHTS
Robert Forster, co-founder of the Go-Betweens & one of Australia's most acclaimed singer-songwriters, announces the most fascinating concert of his stellar solo career.
Playing 40 songs across two consecutive nights, Robert performs two unique shows - with a completely different set of songs each night. Just Robert, his favourite songs and an intimate audience, as he explores his illustrious catalogue with complete freedom. Never repeating himself. No two nights the same. A once-in-a-lifetime experience.
THE CANDLE AND THE FLAME OUT NOW
“The Candle and the Flame is full of life, wonder and hope. The songs are uncluttered, yet musical details sprout from everywhere like green shoots.” - THE GUARDIAN
“The story behind Robert Forster’s eighth solo album is already assuming classic proportions, and the Go-Betweens co-founder has outdone himself with a masterly set of songs” - THE AUSTRALIAN
‘THE CANDLE AND THE FLAME’
Fans will be able to hear songs from the ‘The Candle And The Flame’ when Robert hits the road for a string of tour dates in 2023 – tickets available here.
ROBERT FORSTER - ‘THE CANDLE AND THE FLAME'
UK, IRELAND, GERMANY & AUSTRIA TOUR - MARCH/APRIL 2023
AUSTRALIAN TOUR – MAY 2023
TICKETS ON SALE NOW
ROBERT FORSTER
ANNOUNCES AUSTRALIAN TOUR
SHARES NEW SINGLE ‘TENDER YEARS’
TAKEN FROM HIS FORTHCOMING ALBUM ‘THE CANDLE AND THE FLAME’, TO BE RELEASED 3 FEBRUARY 2023
Acclaimed Australian singer – songwriter Robert Forster shares new single ‘Tender Years’, a track lifted from his forthcoming album ‘The Candle And The Flame’ which is set for release on February 3.
‘The Candle And The Flame’ started taking shape in 2021. Forster had a batch of songs written over a period of three years which he knew would be the basis of his next album. The songs felt strong, like they belonged together. They surprised him, too. They had different things to say, more openly personal about those closest to him.
One of those songs was ‘Tender Years’. A song Robert has written about Karin Bäumler, his wife and sometimes musical partner of 32 years and counting.
‘Tender Years’ could be one of the greatest love songs Robert has written in a career that now stretches across nine studio albums with The Go-Betweens and eight solo albums. It is rare to hear a love song expressed with such clarity and deep emotional resonance, rarer still to hear one set to such a deliciously funky groove. “I’m in a story with her/I know I can’t live without her,” Robert sings, as a rhythmic drum and bass line drive the song on. The story is that of Karin and Robert but like so many songs with an enduring power, the personal feels universal too.
Fans will be able to hear ‘Tender Years’, first single ‘She’s a Fighter’ and other, yet to be released songs from the ‘The Candle And The Flame’ when Robert hits the road for a string of national tour dates in May 2023 – tickets available here.
‘The Candle And The Flame’ consists of 9 songs written by Robert. Produced by Robert, Karin Bäumler (Baby You Know) and Louis Forster (The Goon Sax), the album was mixed by Victor Van Vugt (Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, PJ Harvey) and features former Go-Betweens and Warm Nights bass player Adele Pickvance as well as Scott Bromiley and Luke McDonald (The John Steele Singers), who worked on Robert’s ‘Inferno’ and ‘Songs To Play’ albums.
“The recording sessions for the album were done sporadically over six months. Sometimes just one or two days a month. As that was all Karin’s strength and condition allowed her to do. So we had to record ‘live’, catching magical moments and going for ‘feel'. And that became the sound of the album.” says Robert.
Robert Forster has also announced shows in the UK, Ireland, Germany and Austria for March 2023. He is currently writing a novel and preparing the release of Volume 3 of The Go-Betweens Boxset series, ‘G Stands For Go-Betweens.’
ROBERT FORSTER - ‘THE CANDLE AND THE FLAME'
AUSTRALIAN TOUR – MAY 2023
TICKETS ON SALE NOW
Friday May 12 - Venue: Trinity Sessions, Adelaide
Saturday May 13 - Venue: Freo Social, Fremantle
Thursday May 18 - Venue: Theatre Royal, Castlemaine
Friday May 19 - Venue: Brunswick Ballroom, Brunswick
Saturday May 20 - Venue: Memo Music Hall, St Kilda
Sunday May 21 - Venue: Archies Creek Hotel, Archies Creek
Friday May 26 - Venue: Princess Theatre, Brisbane
Saturday May 27 - Venue: Factory Theatre, Sydney
Sunday May 28 - Venue: Lizottes, Newcastle
ROBERT FORSTER – ‘THE CANDLE AND THE FLAME’
RELEASED 3RD FEBRUARY 2023 – PRE-ORDER / PRE-SAVE HERE
‘TENDER YEARS’
OUT NOW – LISTEN HERE
ROBERT FORSTER NEWS UPDATE
A MESSAGE FROM ROBERT
Greetings from Brisbane
Dear friends, pull up chairs, this is a difficult and lengthy post. It is tough news that I wish to share with you and not for you to pick up second hand on the internet over the next months.
In early July last year, Karin Bäumler, my wife and musical companion for thirty-two years, was diagnosed with a confronting case of ovarian cancer. It was a time of shock and grief, and that same month, she embarked on a regime of chemotherapy treatment.
Ever since we met, Karin and I have sung and played music together in our home, and in these dark days we turned to music once again. I had a batch of new songs I’d written over the last years, and we started playing them together. Our son Louis often dropped in for a meal and a chat and soon he began joining us on guitar. One night, when sitting cross-legged on the couch, after we had played a song, Karin looked up from her xylophone and said, ‘When we play music, is the only time I forget I have cancer.’ That was a big moment.
In the meantime some of our very kind Brisbane friends had formed a cooking roster, leaving meals at our front door to support us through this time. One of them was Adele Pickvance, former Go-Betweens and Warm Nights bass player. On one of her meal delivery trips, I asked her to bring her bass and an amp along. She pulled up a chair in our lounge room and fell right in on the new songs.
In October, Karin was scheduled for surgery. We booked a studio, and on September 27th, the four of us sitting in a circle, recorded 10 songs live in 7 hours. Whatever would happen in the future, we would always have the tape.
Over the next months, when Karin was strong enough and Covid numbers were low, we booked odd days in the studio. Sometimes our daughter, Loretta, would come along and join us and we brought in friends to help us, too. Karin was driving the album and listening to what we’d done on each session, gave us weeks of enjoyment and a place we could retreat to, away from hospital visits and scans and blood tests. In early March, with her chemotherapy course just finished, we did our last day in the studio.
The songs we recorded formed an album that will come out early next year, and this Wednesday, the 19th, we will release a single. But we wanted you to know the story of the creation of the record first. Why it exists. Why these musicians are playing on it. Why there isn’t layers of production, instead a live, catch a moment feel to the sound. Two of the songs on the album are from that September 27 recording. We didn’t know we’d started an album but we had, in the shadow of Karin’s hospital visits.
With a challenging year behind her, Karin is feeling strong and positive now and she can’t wait for our music to go out of our house and into the world. It may seem strange making an album in these circumstances and looking back, we really don’t know how we did it, but we do know that it helped us just so much as a family. It was done in drops and gave us this other reality we could live in. Something that music is great in giving.
In the slow process of the album’s recording, we didn’t inform a wide range of family and friends of what we were doing, and we ask for their understanding in the delivery of this news.
The album is called “The Candle And The Flame”. We hope you will enjoy it!
Fondest Regards from Karin and myself,
Robert.
ROBERT FORSTER RELEASES NEW SINGLE, ‘SHE’S A FIGHTER’
TAKEN FROM HIS FORTHCOMING ALBUM ‘THE CANDLE AND THE FLAME’, TO BE RELEASED 3 FEBRUARY 2023
Acclaimed Australian singer – songwriter Robert Forster today announces his 8th solo album ‘The Candle And The Flame’ to be released on Friday 3rd February 2023 and available to pre-order/save here now. It’s an album for Forster that has taken a very different path in creating than his previous works. The first single, released today is titled ‘She’s A Fighter’. It reveals only part of what became a journey of creating music with family and friends with a need to find joy and solace in the face of adversity.
Robert explains:
“‘She’s A Fighter’ is the last song I wrote for ‘The Candle And The Flame’ album. I wrote the music for it in June 2021. I liked the tune and the quick energy of the song, but I didn't know yet what it was going to be about.
In early July, Karin Bäumler, my wife and musical companion for thirty-two years, received a cancer diagnosis.
In late July, with a series of chemotherapy sessions about to begin, Karin talked of fighting for her health and a path through chemotherapy to recovery.
The phrase, ’She’s A Fighter’ came to me.
I liked it. And I knew immediately that it would work with my new melody. I needed just one other line for the lyric. ‘Fighting for good.’ The song was finished.
I had written my first two-line song. I had just out-Ramoned The Ramones!
Because the song has so much meaning to us, we decided to record it as a family. The only time this happens on the album. Karin sings and plays xylophone. Our daughter Loretta plays electric guitar. Our son Louis plays guitar, bass and percussion. And I strum an acoustic guitar fiercely and sing.
And that’s ‘She’s a Fighter’.”
That coming together musically as a family is captured in the video for ‘She’s A Fighter’. “The video was shot in the same studio (Alchemix Studios, Brisbane) as the album was recorded in. So there is continuity,” Forster said. “And the way the four of sit in a circle playing, is very much how we recorded ‘She’s A Fighter’ and other tracks on the album.”
‘The Candle And The Flame’ consists of 9 songs written by Robert. Produced by Robert, Karin Bäumler and Louis Forster (The Goon Sax), the album was mixed by Victor Van Vugt (Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, PJ Harvey) and features former Go-Betweens and Warm Nights bass player Adele Pickvance as well as Scott Bromiley and Luke McDonald (The John Steele Singers), who worked on Robert’s ‘Inferno’ and ‘Songs To Play’ albums.
“The recording sessions for the album were done sporadically over six months. Sometimes just one or two days a month. As that was all Karin’s strength and condition allowed her to do. So we had to record ‘live’, catching magical moments and going for ‘feel'. And that became the sound of the album.” says Robert.
Robert Forster is planning shows both in Australia and abroad in 2023 with dates to be announced soon. He is currently writing a novel and preparing the release of Volume 3 of The Go-Betweens Boxset series, ‘G Stands For Go-Betweens.’
ROBERT FORSTER – ‘THE CANDLE AND THE FLAME’
RELEASED 3RD FEBRUARY 2023 – PRE-ORDER / PRE-SAVE HERE
‘SHE’S A FIGHTER’
OUT NOW – LISTEN HERE