Robert Forster
★★★★
Warm Nights
NEEDLE MYTHOLOGY. CD/DL/LP
A Go-Between’s fourth solo scorcher, now with bonus 4-track EP.
Forster’s 1990s are often misunderstood as a low-key hiatus between Act One and Act Two of The Go-Betweens, but his solo records remained excellent, not least 1996’s Warm Nights. Its buzzing evocation of Brisbane heat was actually produced in London by Edwyn Collins, capturing what Forster identifies as “a dry low-end groove pitched between Creedence Clearwater Revival and Willie Mitchell’s early-’70s Hi Records work.” Hence sprung, skinny choogles like I Can Do and Warm Nights sit alongside taut melodrama Cryin’ Love. Forster wrote the songs quickly by his standards, but evidently fretted over it at length: 28 years later, B-side Half The Way Home has been switched in for classic Go-Betweens leftover Rock’n’Roll Friend (relegated to a bonus 7-inch EP), and oompah horns reinstated on Fortress. A simultaneous reissue of 1994 covers set I Had A New York Girlfriend is also overhauled, with a new cover and title – Beautiful Hearts.