Early Apartments and Brisbane connections (1978-1980) The Apartments first came together in Brisbane in 1978 with Walsh (guitar, vocals), Michael O'Connell (guitar, vocals), Peter Whitby (bass, vocals) and Peter Martin (drums). The band's name derives from
Billy Wilder's 1960 film
The Apartment. While in The Apartments, Walsh briefly joined
The Go-Betweens as guitarist when they were offered an 8-album contract by
Beserkley Records. During an interview at the time,
Robert Forster and
Grant McLennan spoke about Walsh and the "variety of personalities and image" in the Go-Betweens. McLennan said "Walsh is night" and Forster "We are day" with McLennan adding "We’re sun, he’s rain." Four years after Grant McLennan's death, Walsh wrote about this period and his friendship with The Go-Betweens in a piece entitled "Who will remember your tunes?" When the Beserkley deal fell through, Walsh returned to The Apartments and
The Go-Betweens resumed as a three-piece. The Go-Betweens affectionately commemorated Walsh's style and his time with them on the B side of their next single, "Don't Let Him Come Back":
"Here he comes, with his twelve o’clock junk…who’s that dressed in black? Who’s that in his apartment?" The Apartments' first EP
The Return of the Hypnotist was recorded for The Go-Betweens'
Able Label in May, 1979.
The Apartments reformed (1984-1985) A year later Walsh returned to Australia and reformed the Apartments with a line-up including ex-Out of Nowhere members, Gary Warner (piano), Joseph Borkowski (bass) and Graeme Beavis (guitar), and Bruce Carrick (drums). The Apartments were joined by guest musicians Clare Kenny (formerly of
Orange Juice, bass, vocals),
Ben Watt of
Everything but the Girl, and Graham Lee of
The Triffids. French music critic and biographer of
Serge Gainsbourg, Bayon, writing in
Libération, drew favourable comparisons to a diverse range of musicians, both contemporary (
Cocteau Twins,
Felt,
Nick Cave) and preceding (
Nick Drake,
Bob Dylan,
Alex Chilton).
The Evening Visits... subsequently appeared in the
NMEs 1985 'Albums of the Year' end of year critic list and became a cult hit in France. "All You Wanted" was reissued by Rough Trade, the single reaching no. 29 on the
UK Independent Chart in 1986. Following an English tour with
Everything but the Girl, a new line-up emerged that included Jurgen Hobbs (bass), Judy Anderson (piano, organ) and Nick Allum (drums). This incarnation of the band played shows in the UK and Europe and released a single, "The Shyest Time", in 1988. "The Shyest Time" was featured on the soundtrack of
John Hughes' movie
Some Kind of Wonderful. Subsequent litigation between The Apartments and Hughes' production company over recording prevented the Apartments from releasing new material for nearly 18 months.
Australia and France (1989-1999) With
Rough Trade in receivership as the Eighties ended, Walsh left England for Australia. He continued writing and occasional performances as a duet with
Amanda Brown of
The Go Betweens and as the Apartments with
Ed Kuepper. Recordings of both were extensively bootlegged. In 1993, The Apartments recorded
Drift, the first Apartments album released in Australia, on Melbourne label Torn & Frayed.
Drift was next released in France on
New Rose. The album (like its predecessor) achieved high praise in France, Due to its popularity in France, the album was re-released and remastered through French indie label
Talitres in 2010. A tour of France followed in 1994 with The Apartments consisting of Walsh, two members of
Big Heavy Stuff — Eliot Fish (bass, vocals) and Greg Atkinson (guitar, vocals) — and Nick Allum on drums. The Apartments then recorded three more albums in quick succession:
A Life Full of Farewells (1995), the acoustic
Fête Foraine (1996), and
Apart (1997).
Rolling Stone reviewer Rob O'Connor described
A Life Full of Farewells as "the sort of ornate pop record one usually associates with big-budget psychedelia or overstudied Anglo pop. For the most part, Walsh's songs enable listeners to enjoy time spent in places we would usually rather not be."
Mojo said "Taken together, 1985's
The Evening Visits..., 1993's
Drift and 1995's
A Life Full of Farewells constitute the finest, most distinguished catalogue I've heard in the past decade or so." On the final day of mixing and recording apart Walsh was informed that his young son had been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. After this, Walsh suspended writing and touring for the Apartments to devote his attention to his son, who died two years later in September 1999. Walsh played three shows in France in November 2009. Walsh played with Fish (with two French musicians on some songs) in Chinon, Paris (L'Européen) and Clermont-Ferrand. The Apartments were supported by French band 49 Swimming Pools, who, as fans of The Apartments, organised the tour. A French tour for 2012 (''It's Not Our World Anymore
) was announced via French crowdfunding site Ulule. A series of shows took place in November and December, in art galleries and boutiques in Paris and La Rochelle and in regular music venues in Paris (Bouffes du Nord), Bordeaux, Clermont-Ferrand, Nantes, and Allonnes. Walsh played with Amanda Brown, Nick Allum (from the Fatima Mansions), Wayne Connolly (of Knievel), Fabien Tessier and Samuel Léger (of 49 Swimming Pools) and Gaël Riteau. The tour featured the use of photos of Jean Seberg taken on the set of the film À Bout de Souffle'' by
Raymond Cauchetier. In collaboration with Parisian graphic designer Pascal Blua, Cauchetier personally approved Walsh's use of his images, some never before published, as stage backdrops and in promotional material for the tour. During the 2012 ''It's Not Our World Anymore
tour, the Apartments recorded a live session for the Label Pop
radio programme on Radio France. This was later released by French label Talitres as a limited edition vinyl LP of 500 copies for Disquaire Day (Record Store Day), Seven Songs
, on 20 April 2013. It covers the first seven years of material including the tracks from the first EP The Return of the Hypnotist
. Uncut'' magazine awarded the album 9/10, with Jon Dale writing "...Played with quiet grace, the eight chamber-pop songs here are alternatively harrowing and redemptive, anchored by loss." In Australia, Noel Mengel said "Loss courses through these songs like blood through the veins...Just eight songs, less than 40 minutes of music. But what songs. It’s perfect just as it is." While in Tours, France a video for "Please Don't Say Remember" was made by US Director Paul Harrill. At year's end, French music magazine
Magic named
No Song, No Spell, No Madrigal no. 1 album of the year, a position never before achieved by an Australian artist. In Australia, ABC Radio National's music show,
Inside Sleeve, named "Twenty One" the no. 1 song of 2015. In the US, ex-
Mojo editor Dave DiMartino made the album his no. 1 in his albums of the year list, saying "The first album of new material in years from Australian Peter Milton Walsh of the Apartments is fantastic, emotionally profound, and maybe the most moving collection of songs I've heard in years. Untouchably great." In September 2016, Riley Records released
No Song, No Spell, No Madrigal in Australia and New Zealand. This release includes two exclusive bonus tracks recorded following the April French Tour, "Nobody Like You", and an acoustic version of "Swap Places", featuring the tour trio. A video for the acoustic version of "Swap Places" was also released in September and features the photography of Jérôme Sevrette. In December 2016, Netherlands based label Brandy Alexander released
No Song, No Spell, No Madrigal.
Touring The Apartments toured France in 2015 with a full band including French (Penot, Chaperon, Tessier, Riteau), English (Allum) and Australian players (Fish and Walsh) to promote the release of
No Song, No Spell, No Madrigal. On New Year's Day 2016 the Apartments played a headline show as part of the
Andy Warhol/Weiwei exhibition at the
National Gallery of Victoria. The Apartments then played a sold-out show in the Speigeltent at the Sydney Festival in January 2016. In April 2016 The Apartments undertook a nine-show
Three for the Road French tour as a trio with Antoine Chaperon, Natasha Penot and Walsh, playing Chartres, Saint-Lô, Lille, Paris, Amiens, Beaumont, Hyères, Grenoble, and Lyon. Jim Yamouridis, Seb Martel and Fabrice Fabrice Barré supported The Apartments for part of the tour. In July 2016 The Apartments, including Brown, Connolly, Fish, Miro Bukovsky, Clare Moore, and Walsh, played a headline show as part of 'Monet's Garden: The Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris' at the
National Gallery of Victoria. During 2017 and 2018 The Apartments / Peter Milton Walsh focused on playing locally in Australia with shows in Sydney and Brisbane before Peter Milton Walsh based himself in the south of France for three months. The 2018 residency in France allowed extensive touring in France, along with shows in London, Rotterdam, Cologne and Lausanne. For these shows, The Apartments consisted of Peter Milton Walsh with long term French collaborators Natasha Penot and Antoine Chaperon. On 11 December 2021, The Apartments played The Great Club in
Marrickville. Support was
Lindy Morrison and
Rob Snarski playing as a duo. The Apartments toured France in March 2022 with Allum, Chaperon and Penot. Eliot Fish was replaced by
Michael Hiscock of
The Field Mice.
New album releases, re-releases and guest appearance Walsh is guest vocalist on "Attention to Life", a track on
Piano Magic's final album,
Closure, released by Second Language Music on 20 January 2017. The album also features guest appearances by
Audrey Riley, cellist on The Apartments first album. In January 2017, Brisbane label LCMR released a limited edition of 300 copies of The Apartments' first EP. In 2017 The Apartments released two albums from their back catalogue and for both it was the first time in vinyl and releases were limited to 1,000 copies each. Talitres and Riley Records released
drift in September and Microcultures and Riley Records released
fête foraine in November. The albums were reviewed together by
Uncut in March 2018.
drift was rated 7/10 and Jon Dale wrote the album is "...full of transit, a series of set pieces for urban anomie and romantic collapse...", while
fête foraine received a 9/10 rating. The band's show from September 2015 at the L'Ubu club in
Rennes, featuring Allum, Chaperon, Fish, Riteau, Tessier, Penot was recorded by French television, and the performance was released on the ''Live at L'Ubu'' double vinyl album on
Record Store Day, 13 April 2019. In September 2020
Talitres released a new album, In and Out of the Light The Apartments' tenth album, ''That's What the Music is For'', was released on the 17 October 2025. Two singles from the album were released prior to the album release, both with accompanying videos by Nick Langley. ==Discography==