Strawberries [LP]

Robert Forster - Strawberries [LP]

LP version. Picture one of the greatest living singer-songwriters in a kitchen. He is on holidays, he's just had a swim. His wife is out on the beach, and he finds himself faced with a bowl of irresistible strawberries. They're meant to be shared, of course, but their taste is ''out of the ordinary,'' so he just can't help himself. Minutes later all of the delicious fruit are gone, but there's the germ of a song as the phrase ''Someone ate all the strawberries'' has just popped into Robert Forster's mind, sounding ''so weird, but normal''. Thankfully, he has taken his guitar with him. As the story goes, his wife Karin Baumler not only forgave her husband, she actually joined him on a duet of what was to become the title song to his ninth solo album. Robert Forster has perfected the art of being outre in a least ostentatious way, from his time in the Go-Betweens to his solo career, now spanning almost three decades, interrupted only by the old band's reformation in 2000 which ended with his songwriting partner Grant McLennan's untimely death in 2006. Strawberries follows a recent spate of deluxe reissues of four of his older solo albums as well as the third and final volume of the career-spanning series of G Stands For Go-Betweens boxsets with a much awaited helping of new material. Next to admittedly bigger names such as Bob Dylan or Nick Cave, Robert Forster is the rare case of an artist with a celebrated past whose current work evokes genuine interest among a faithful fan base. As a straight-up personal song, ''Strawberries'' is a bit of a red herring in the context of this new album that, unusually for Forster, deals almost exclusively in observational character studies or, as the author would have it, ''story songs''. Louis Forster, by the way, also makes an impressive appearance on lyrical lead guitar in ''Such a Shame.'' As his slapback echo vocals tuck into a rockabilly vibe, you can hear Forster enjoying the company of his Swedish backing band: producer Peter Moren (of Peter, Bjorn and John fame) on guitar, Jonas Thorell on bass, and Magnus Olsson on drums, crucially augmented by Lina Langendorf on various woodwind instruments and Anna Ahman on keys. The album's monumental closing track ''Diamonds'' starts off as a cross between Lou Reed and Buffalo Springfield, then takes off via Astral Weeks into an (almost) Albert Ayler direction, with Lina Langendorf given free rein on the tenor sax and Forster himself relinquishing his trademark understatement for some unexpected outbursts of falsetto. 01. Tell It Back To Me 02. Good To Cry 03. Breakfast On The Train 04. Strawberries 05. All Of The Time 06. Such A Shame 07. Foolish I Know 08. Diamonds