Forenzics – Shades and Echoes
As with many things in the early 2020s, this album arrived in a different form than expected. First announced in 2020, just as everyone was hunkering down for lockdown, the then-upcoming Forenzics album was said to be under construction by some key founding members of Split Enz, and would involve making entire new songs out of the catchy transition pieces that were commonly used to connect wildly different sections of early Enz songs. And, starting with the lead track “Walking”, that’s what Shades and Echoes delivers – along with something else. At roughly the same time in 2019-2020, keyboardist Eddie Rayner assembled an ad hoc band of friends to jam out some songs of their own; he asked Tim Finn to help come up with some lyrics for those. By the time Shades and Echoes landed, it has absorbed the “band jam with lyrics added later” project as well, and the result is probably better than either project would have been on its own. The band jams gained Finn as a lyricist and vocalist, and Shades and Echoes was freed from being tied down to rehashing even small nuggets of Split Enz songs.
The Split Enz-derived material is inspired – “Walking” builds upon a very brief interlude from “Walking Down A Road”, but is otherwise a new song with completely new lyrics that only briefly mention their inspiration. “Abandoned” uses the mandolin riff from “Matinee Idyll (129)” as its point of inspiration. “Chances Are” is more tied to its inspiration than most, heavily referencing the echoing guitar riff of “Spellbound”. “Empty Nest” builds on Rayner’s piano outro from “Bon Voyage”, an atypical dip into the ’80s Enz repertoire (most of the “shades and echoes” that serve as starting points for new material here hail from the band’s early ’70s art rock phase). You really have to pay attention to pick out “Strange Stars” getting its inspiration from “Under The Wheel”, or “Autumn” getting a boost by way of “Without A Doubt”, so not all of the Split Enz lifts are obvious.
The other half of the album, however, derived from Rayner’s jams with his group of colleagues dubbed Double Life, give it a whole different flavor, preventing the album from simply being a sonic scavenger hunt for Split Enz fans. “Unlikely Friend”, “Rules”, “Premiere Fois” and “Europe Speaks” are the choice cuts here, the first two in particular distinguishing themselves with vocal duets between Finn and Megan Washington (who also contributed vocals on one of his later solo albums). “Unlikely Friend” is jazzy in a way that one doesn’t necessarily expect to hear from any project that has even a partial Split Enz reunion in its DNA, and it’s the runaway favorite of the whole project.
If this had been something only for listeners who wanted to pick out Split Enz riffs, that might’ve lessened the wide appeal of Shades and Echoes. It was a wise choice to widen the album’s appeal – there are a lot of gems that no one was expecting here, and it makes for compulsory repeat listening. This album is really one of the best things that has hit my ears in 2022.
- Walking (4:57)
- Rules (3:58)
- Abandoned (3:17)
- Chances Are (3:19)
- Empty Nest (4:25)
- Premiere Fois (3:47)
- Europe Speaks (3:55)
- Shut The Door (3:14)
- Love Is (4:20)
- Unlikely Friend (3:39)
- Strange Stars (4:34)
- System Overload (3:58)
- I Spy (4:00)
- Autumn (3:45)
Released by: Warner Music NZ
Release date: February 4, 2022
Total running time: 55:08
It’s an interesting notion, pairing a somewhat morose, navel-gazing (but still compelling) movie with a soundtrack that veers between percolating electronica and moody piano and cello, but the resulting soundtrack is an interesting new entry in the debate about electronica-as-film-score (a conversation that’s been unavoidable since 
quite fits the movie like a glove. The subtler cues are the most at home within the movie, and the more “active” music, while it’s a better stand-alone listening experience, never quite fits as well. It may be best to hear the soundtrack before the movie, and soak up the music independent of the imagery, rather than the other way around.
fun.’s 
The eagerly awaited second effort from Liam Finn was a major event for indie music in 2011; indeed, it was easier to find his new album than it was to track down the latest efforts from his famous father or uncle. I’ll Be Lightning had set the bar incredibly high, with across-the-board great songwriting, crisp (if occasionally slightly lo-fi) production, and mind-boggling performances from Finn, who played and sang every note on the album. How could he surpass that opening act?
Ever since this album was first announced as a project where Folds would be putting Hornby’s words to music, one question kept running through my head: since when does Ben Folds need help coming up with lyrics for story songs? I mean, the man has practically assumed the story-song-writer throne abdicated by Billy Joel, and almost all of his output is a story song of one kind or another. I mean, if you’re going to have help, you might as well have help from an award-winning novelist, but… Ben Folds needs an assist writing story songs? Really?
It’s something of an understatement to say that Tim Finn has earned a best-of album by now. The only catch is that it’s taken so long that there’s probably a whole generation in New Zealand – never mind everywhere else – asking “Tim who?” Hence, North, South, East, West… has a bit of an identity crisis: it’s not just a 
The first 7 Worlds Collide album (and DVD) chronicled an all-star gathering of international musicians who assembled quickly to play a few dates in Neil Finn’s stomping grounds; the album was culled from the live performances, and the superstar band (which included the likes of Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder) disbanded, after its shows raised money for charity. The second release under the 7 Worlds Collide banner retains the all-star band part of the formula, but the resulting double album is a creature of the studio, often under the watchful production eye of 
Produced with the blessing of Patrick McGoohan himself, this CD single is a lively remix/remake of Ron Grainer’s immortal theme from The Prisoner. Sound clips from the original series are sprinkled liberally throughout the song and become an integral part of its rhythm.
Yet another