Seraphina Lotkhamnga on September 6th, 2011

0

A reunion between old pals can be great inspiration for new music, and that’s exactly what happened for Carlos Forster, former singer-guitarist of Bay Area-based For Stars, when he met up again with M. Ward. Old buddies from college, he and Ward reconnected in Portland after the demise of the band Forster helmed from 1998 to ’04. Recorded with Ward over a five-plus-year span, Forster’s new solo record, “Family Trees,” out in July on Hush Records, offers a nice mixture of his earlier folk-pop tinged with a bit of laid-back ’60s and ’70s touches and today’s indie rock sounds. The album, made in Mike Coykendall’s Portland studio, includes rhythms laid down by drummer Rachel Blumberg (M. Ward, Bright Eyes, Decemberists) and rhythm guitar help from Jonathan Richman. Forster’s current practice in psychoanalytic theory and psychotherapy inspired songs with some pretty deep themes; self-analysis has seldom sounded this pretty.

||| Download: “I Walk I Talk”

||| Live: Carlos Forster will be playing Sept. 17 at 1642 Bar (1642 W. Temple).