'Bright' Days Ahead For The Go-Betweens

Unlike so many bands that reunite after years apart for one last fling in the stadium or studio, Australia's The Go-Betweens are in it for the long haul. Again.

The group, fronted by dual vocalist/guitarists Robert Forster and Grant McLennan, is preparing for the release of its new album, Bright Yellow, Bright Orange, on Circus Records in the UK on Feb. 17, and a day later in the U.S. on Jetset Records. (The album will be distributed by other labels in other parts of the world.) "I'm not saying it's the best [Go-Betweens' album], I'll leave that to critics and the fans, but I am saying this is my favorite," McLennan is quoted as saying in a Jetset press release. "Our writing has never been better, we're collaborating in some very new and exciting ways."

Bright Yellow, Bright Orange is The Go-Betweens' second album since they ended an 11-year breakup in 2000 with the release of their acclaimed comeback album, The Friends of Rachel Worth. Though that was widely thought to be a one-off, the duo sees the new album as part of the ongoing second act of The Go-Betweens' career. "For Grant and I, we always knew we were going to do more, that this would become another body of work," Forster said in the Jetset press release.

Unlike The Friends of Rachel Worth, which was recorded in Portland, Ore., with help from the members of the punk-influenced rock group Sleater-Kinney (whose drummer, Janet Weiss, co-produced), the new album was recorded in Melbourne, Australia. It features 10 songs, including "Too Much of One Thing," "Old Mexico" and, perhaps most tellingly, "Unfinished Business." The sound is more mature, but still typically well crafted and melodic; in other words, classic Go-Betweens-style pop-rock.

The album title refers both to a painting that Forster was given, and to the colors of his son's bedroom walls. "When our son was born, a very good friend of ours called John Nixon, who's an artist, sent us a small painting," Forster explained in an interview posted on The Go-Betweens Web site. "...It was two colours, and they were bright yellow and bright orange. This was in 1998. And then we moved to Australia at the end of last year. We bought a house. We were painting our son's bedroom — and I'd honestly forgotten about this painting — and we painted the bedroom bright yellow and bright orange. This was about March this year. I can remember standing in the room and I looked at it all and I just went 'Oh — bright yellow bright orange.' And as soon as I said that I went 'That's an album title.'

"So the actual "bright yellow bright orange" is the colour of our son's bedroom," he continued. "And that's where it came from — I just said it aloud to a couple of people in the room. Later we dug out the painting, which we'd brought out from Germany, it's hanging in the house and the colours almost match. And these were mixed colours, both of them were made up in the hardware shop and they match the painting. And that's exactly what it is, a very very bizarre coincidence."

The Go-Betweens were formed in 1978 in Australia and soon moved to London in time to fall in with the new wave zeitgeist in the 1980s. Though they never hit it big on the charts, The Go-Betweens were lauded for their intelligent, Brit-sounding pop-rock. They released six albums before breaking up in 1989, when Forster and McLennan decided to pursue solo careers. The closest they came to a hit single was "Streets of Your Town" from their 1988 album 16 Lovers Lane.

Forster and McLennan are joined on the new album by Adele Pickvance (bass, vocals, tambourine) and multi-instrumentalist Glenn Thompson (drums, Farfisa organ, guitar, keyboard); they'll tour during 2003 with Pickvance and Thompson in the band. Australian dates, including a Feb. 15 appearance at the Perth International Festival, are being planned; UK and European dates will follow later in the year.

The full track listing: "Caroline & I," "Poison in the Walls," "Mrs. Morgan," "In Her Diary," "Too Much of OneThing," "Crooked Lines," "Old Mexico," "Make Her Day," "Something for Myself" and "Unfinished Business."

More information, including an interview with Forster and McLennan, can be found at the official Go-Betweens Web site. — Ryan DeGama [Monday, Dec. 30, 2002]