• The Apartments
Biography

The Apartments (named after Billy Wilder’s film The Apartment, a gentle melodrama and brilliant satire of American society) emerged in Brisbane, Australia, in spring 1978. Peter Milton Walsh also worked with The Go-Betweens when they signed to Beserkley Records, before leaving Australia for New York and later London. He joined the British label Rough Trade and released his debut studio album in 1985, The Evening Visits....and Stays For Years — a treasure trove of luminous melancholy. drift (1992), the second album originally released on Torn & Frayed/New Rose (reissued by Talitres), is a collection of unclassifiable gems, a timeless masterpiece. A Life Full of Farewells (1995), Fête Foraine (1996), and apart (1997) followed, cementing Peter Milton Walsh’s place among the finest songwriters.

After a long hiatus, a period of mourning and farewells, The Apartments returned in 2012 with Seven Songs (a radio session recorded for France Musique) and an unexpected new album, No Song, No Spell, No Madrigal (2015). Then came the live album Live at L’Ubu in 2019, followed by In & Out of The Light in 2021, an album of infinite delicacy painted in light and shadow.

Working closely with producer Tim Kevin, That’s What the Music Is For is The Apartments’ eighth album.

Based in Sydney, Peter Milton Walsh and his band, The Apartments, are acclaimed by critics and fans alike all over the world. Peter Milton Walsh formed The Apartments in Brisbane, 1978, and left Australia for New York a few years later, and relocated to England when The Apartments were signed by legendary English record label Rough Trade. But before leaving Australia, Walsh made his mark on the Brisbane scene. With a reputation that preceded him, Walsh was sought out by Robert Forster and Grant McLennan, members of one of Brisbane’s most critically adored bands, The Go-Betweens. Having been offered an 8-album deal by Beserkley Records (home to Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers), Forster and McLennan asked Walsh to join The Go-Betweens as their fourth member in late 1978. The union was, however, short-lived, as the deal with Beserkley fell through. Grant McLennan famously said of their different personalities, “Walsh is night, we are day. We’re sun, he’s rain.”

« The Return Of The Hypnotist ». That’s what you’d be likely to loudly proclaim on the occasion of the release of « drift », second album of Australia’s legendary The Apartments.

On this first three song EP (released in 1979 by Able Label, a record company founded by the Go Betweens), Peter Walsh revealed his dark and delicate world, with songs like ‘Help’, ‘Nobody Like You’ or ‘Refugee’.

Despite an on and off and nomadic career (from disenchantment and renunciation to the obsession of perfection), despite some behind the curtain chapters, Peter Walsh’s compositions never left us, since « the evening visits…and stays for years » (1985), their first LP composed in Brisbane inside a disused factory.

The Apartments are not back, they’ve actually always been with us. The handful of French concerts Peter Walsh made in 2009, with members of the band 49 Swimming Pools (thanks to journalist Emmanuel Tellier’s passion and right words) can only confirm this impression.

« Drift » was universally praised by the critic when released in 1993. Composed in London where Peter Walsh then lived, it is a collection of unclassified dark pieces, a timeless masterpiece, the remarkable class of a songwritter, the obsessional record of an aching mind. Sold out for many years, it became necessary to release this one again. Three unreleased songs are present on this remastered version (tape recorded demos from 1986: ‘You Wanna Cry, STOP, I’m the Staying Kind’, which were composed as a response to the rumour saying that Dusty Springfield was going back on stage.

Peter wanted her to appropriate this song). When you listen to the songs today, you can hear the very same emotion than eighteen years earlier. The energy and the pride which comes out of the compositions and the ardour present in ‘What’s Left of Your Nerve’ make these songs all the more topical and priceless.

Discography
The Apartments
That’s What The Music is For
Album , CD, LP, VINYL
TAL136 — 2025

Working closely with producer Tim Kevin, That’s What the Music Is For is The Apartments’ eighth album. Peter Milton Walsh began recording it in 2023 like a master pointillist, one touch at a time, one song at a time. In between shows that took him from Mexico City, Sydney or San Francisco to Lisbon and Marseilles, Walsh had access to studio time without real constraints.

Talking about That’s What the Music is For, he says: "Since I didn’t go into the studio with an album ready set of songs, but instead took pieces in to record as soon as they were written and worked on the music in the studio whenever it was available, it wasn’t clear that I’d get to that rainbow’s end—a world of songs that feel like they belong together: an album.
Yet, over the course of recording and as the songs gathered with one another, they began to reveal a story about time—of how past and present so often trade places and that in music and in memory, the people who have gone keep moving in and out of our lives—where can they live now, except in song? We will be saying goodbye to them in bits and pieces for the rest of our lives".

A world of smoke, gin, and regrets; one of melancholy, brass, and strings. A world of refinement and integrity. Life as it comes to us, with its share of joy and sorrow. Peter Milton Walsh’s compositions are true songs in that they tell stories, stories that stay with us, stories we can each finish in our own way. That may well be the essence of great art.

  • apart
  • Album , VINYL (2LP), Digital
  • TAL129 — 2023
  • Seven Songs
  • Album , CD - LP / VINYL + MP3
  • Tal-073 — 2013
  • Drift
  • Album , CD, LP (Gatefold, 1LP, w/ mp3)
  • Tal-057 — 2010 & 2017

“(…) emotionally profound, and maybe the most moving collection of songs I’ve heard in years. Untouchably great.” Dave DiMartino – Rolling Stone

"...Played with quiet grace, the eight chamber-pop songs here are alternatively harrowing and redemptive, anchored by loss.” Jon Dale – Uncut

Tours
New Farm / AUS
The Junk Bar
St Kilda / AUS
George Lane
Rouen (76) / FR
Le 106
Tourcoing (59) / FR
Le Grand Mix
Paris (75) / FR
Petit Bain
Bordeaux (33) / FR
Le Rocher de Palmer, Cenon