Australia and France 1990s
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, the Dirty Three's first label. Drift was next released in France on New Rose, the European label for Alex Chilton. The album (like its predecessor) achieved high praise in France, with Les Inrockuptibles placing Drift at #19 in their end of year list in 1993 and 7th place in the reader's list. Due to its high cult status in France, the album was re-released and remastered through the 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), and 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 later described his reasons for not resuming his musical career after his son’s death. "I just wanted nothing to do with anything that didn't have him in it. I felt like I had been given every chance of happiness and he got none. I felt entitled to nothing."
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