The Apartments‘ magnificent album ‘In And Out Of The Light’ was one of the brief rays of light last year – one of my favourite albums of the year – and the track ‘Where You used to be’ is a wistful gem in a basket of many shining jewels. With one of Brisbane’s greatest singer/songwriters, Peter Milton Walsh (briefly an early Go-Between), The Apartments are possibly one of the most underrated bands coming out of Australia, leaving an indelible impression on indie music in the southern hemisphere and beyond.
‘Where You Used To Be’ is a melancholy and languid track that seems infused by a summery tinge, and the accompanying video is a delightful visual expression of a faded nostalgia, of a time of innocence and delight in a light dipped in a faded colour pallette. Like a movie by Eric Rhomer, the video is bleached and bright and infused by the sunshine and a sense of innocence and loss. Walsh describes the ideas and themes behind the video:
It was written and directed by Meriel O’Connell and when we first talked it over, I was taken straight away by Meriel’s fresh vision for the song, a way to tell the story from a contrasting point of view. Meriel had in mind a world drenched in Kodachrome colour—an American summer and childhood, a time when it’s easy to say “Goals? I don’t have any, ask me about wishes—I’ve got plenty of them.”Why not shoot it with a pair of kids at the end of something, when the times they had together are about to dissolve into memory?When they begin to understand, perhaps for the first time, how people will come and go from their lives—and how they will go on.
The result is something heartbreakingly beautiful and joyous, reflecting the essence of the transience of life and matching Walsh’s delicate, wistful poetry:
‘In And Out Of The Light’ is available to stream and download here.
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