Tag: Tim Finn

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2021 Artists (by group or surname) F Forenzics Music Reviews Non-Soundtrack Music Year

Forenzics – Shades and Echoes

3 min read

Order this CDAs 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.

4 out of 4If 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.

  1. Walking (4:57)
  2. Rules (3:58)
  3. Abandoned (3:17)
  4. Chances Are (3:19)
  5. Empty Nest (4:25)
  6. Premiere Fois (3:47)
  7. Europe Speaks (3:55)
  8. Shut The Door (3:14)
  9. Love Is (4:20)
  10. Unlikely Friend (3:39)
  11. Strange Stars (4:34)
  12. System Overload (3:58)
  13. I Spy (4:00)
  14. Autumn (3:45)

Released by: Warner Music NZ
Release date: February 4, 2022
Total running time: 55:08

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Categories
1991 2016 Artists (by group or surname) C Crowded House Non-Soundtrack Music

Crowded House – Woodface (Deluxe Edition)

7 min read

Since the album’s original release in 1991, the long and twisted road that led to Woodface – Crowded House’s third studio album and arguably the point at which all future Finn Brothers joint efforts took root – has become much more illuminated. From a lengthy stretch of “nice, but we don’t hear a single” conversations with studio heads, to the temporary firing of founding bassist Nick Seymour, to the equally temporary hiring of Neil Finn’s older brother Tim, there’s enough story behind this album alone to power a couple of episodes of VH-1’s Behind The Music, if indeed that show was still being made.

As revealed in Chris Bourke’s warts-and-all band biography Something So Strong (1997), frustrations during the songwriting and recording process led Neil Finn to feel that Seymour wasn’t sparking joy creatively, so the bassist was shown to the door and replacements were auditioned, all of which finally convinced Finn that his angst had been mislaid at Seymour’s feet, opening the door for the band to snap back to its original lineup. The songs recorded without Seymour were put on the shelf; they’d wind up in the live setlist, sure, but the recordings went unheard by the vast majority of us. A few of them surfaced on the post-breakup compilation Afterglow, but the others were a mystery until now, unless you’d happened to hear them in concert. Between the tracks that made it to Afterglow and the bonus disc here, it’s now possible to piece together the original, Tim-less version of Woodface if you’re so inclined.

Spoiler: Tim-free Woodface really wouldn’t have been a bad album. Many of Neil Finn’s rejects are superior to some acts’ number one singles. “My Legs Are Gone” and “The Fields Are Full Of Your Kind” may not be classics on the same level as “Don’t Dream It’s Over”, but they’re worthy additions to the Crowdies’ catalogue, and they’re both incredibly catchy. Another memorable tune that was waiting in the wings is the surprisingly well-developed demo “I May Be Late”, whose harmonies might make you think that it’s a leftover from the Finn brothers’ songwriting sessions, but it was a song written solely by Neil, who apparently deemed it unworthy. Tim-free Woodface would’ve been a very guitar-oriented album that might have needed to lean a bit less on the very “produced” sound that emerged.

Also in the “surprisingly well-developed demo” category are early versions of “She Goes On” and “As Sure As I Am”, both of which seem like they’re a mere stone’s throw from the final studio versions, the latter exhibiting some significant lyric changes. The same can be said for “You Got Me Going”, an early version of “Sacred Cow”, one of the Woodface rejects that wound up on Afterglow. “Be My Guest” and “Burnt Out Tree” are home demos from that period when Neil was trying to write the entire album himself, and while they seem like they each have the germ of something interesting, they evidently ran out of time. A real surprise among the pre-Tim material is “Creek Song / Left Hand”, a fully polished studio version of a known song with a very different lyrical/verse structure, with the “Left Hand” portion being the only recognizable part. “Left Hand” is also part of the Afterglow tracklist, though I think I like the tune of this version better, but not necessarily the lyrics. But perhaps the most unfathomable, glad-they-left-that-on-the-cutting-room-floor specimen is an early rehearsal recording of “Fall At Your Feet”, which combined the verses of “You Got Me Going”/”Sacred Cow” with the chorus of “Fall At Your Feet”. This is what demos are for: to find out what is and isn’t working. (This combination wasn’t working.)

Paul Hester’s home demo of “Italian Plastic” is a particularly fascinating listen, as that’s one of the songs that ended up being “very produced” in its final form on Woodface, and since Hester’s no longer with us to offer any hints on what his original intentions were, this demo is the only clue we have.

Much of the rest of the bonus material was recorded circa 1989 by Neil and Tim Finn, with Hester on drums, as home demos for the Finn Brothers album that was eventually subsumed into Woodface. These are equally fascinating, with “Weather With You”, “There Goes God”, “Four Seasons In One Day”, “All I Ask”, and “How Will You Go” shining as the best examples of these. Also interesting are songs such as “It’s Only Natural” and “Chocolate Cake”, which are far less polished musically and lyrically than the aforementioned tunes, and yet the core of each song didn’t change that much between Neil’s home studio and the final studio recording, which may be why those two songs wound up with the level of production that they did: to disguise those very deficiencies. “Catherine Wheel” is here in demo form, though it would have to wait until Together Alone to make its appearance, and I think the demo makes a strong case for the argument that this song was much better with Youth’s production than it would’ve been with Mitchell Froom’s, especially as Woodface was, in a few places, lumbered with the most gimmicky production of any of the original lineup’s albums. The bonus disc is rounded out with a seven-minute live medley and the full version of “I’m Still Here”, a not-safe-for-work jam from which only an excerpt was heard in the fade-out of the original Woodface.

It’s tempting, and also dangerous, to try to read anything into the bonus disc material (indeed, I’m sure one of Neil’s favorite 4 out of 4hobbies is listening to people try to psychoanalyze him on the basis of Bourke’s tell-all book). But I think that a lot of the creative sturm und drang early in Woodface‘s development was down to frustration over what seemed to be the commercial failure of its immediate predecessor, Temple Of Low Men, and a lot of label pressure to just obediently crank out “Don’t Dream It’s Over II: Froom Hammond Organ Solo Boogaloo”. Listening to the original Woodface tracklist, as revealed on both this expanded reissue and Afterglow, I hear an album that would’ve been fine. Perhaps not on a level with Temple Of Low Men or the debut album, but not a stinker. And listening back to some of the more gimmicky production poured into the final mix of Woodface from a distance of 28 years, what I really find myself thinking is: maybe what the world – and Crowded House – really needed was Woodface a la Youth. I find myself taking issue not with the songs, but with the production.

Order this CD

    Disc 1 – original album:
  1. Chocolate Cake (4:02)
  2. It’s Only Natural (3:32)
  3. Fall at Your Feet (3:18)
  4. Tall Trees (2:19)
  5. Weather with You (3:44)
  6. Whispers and Moans (3:39)
  7. Four Seasons in One Day (2:50)
  8. There Goes God (3:50)
  9. Fame Is (2:23)
  10. All I Ask (3:55)
  11. As Sure as I Am (2:53)
  12. Italian Plastic (3:39)
  13. She Goes On (3:15)
  14. How Will You Go (4:14)
    Disc 2 – bonus tracks:
  1. Burnt Out Tree (Home Demo) (1:36)
  2. I May Be Late (Home Demo) (3:06)
  3. She Goes On (Home Demo) (3:13)
  4. As Sure As I Am (Home Demo) (2:37)
  5. My Legs Are Gone (Studio Demo) (4:33)
  6. You Got Me Going (Home Demo) (3:23)
  7. Italian Plastic (Home Demo) (2:54)
  8. Be My Guest (Home Demo) (2:03)
  9. Weather With You (Home Demo) (3:08)
  10. Chocolate Cake (Home Demo) (3:50)
  11. How Will You Go (Home Demo) (2:46)
  12. It’s Only Natural (Home Demo) (3:21)
  13. Four Seasons In One Day (Home Demo) (2:42)
  14. There Goes God (Home Demo) (2:43)
  15. Catherine Wheel (Home Demo) (3:00)
  16. All I Ask (Home Demo) (2:43)
  17. Fields Are Full Of Your Kind (3:29)
  18. Creek Song / Left Hand (3:04)
  19. Fall At Your Feet (Rehearsal Early Version) (3:22)
  20. The Burglar’s Song (Medley) – Around The UK In 7 Minutes (Live) (7:21)
  21. I’m Still Here (Full Version) (2:19)

Released by: Capitol Records
Release date: 2016
Disc one total running time: 48:06
Disc two total running time: 1:07:03

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Categories
2011 F F Non-Soundtrack Music Tim Finn

Tim Finn – The View Is Worth The Climb

2 min read

Order this CDA new solo album that put the lie to Split Enz co-founder Tim Finn’s claims that he was done with his solo career, The View Is Worth The Climb is a welcome, if slightly subdued, new chapter of that career.

A little over ten years ago, Tim Finn was railing against turning 50 by turning out throat-thrashing, experimental albums that dipped their toes into electronica and yet were still a great listen. Now staring down the barrel of 60, he’s mining his material from the almost-normal home life that eluded him for so long, and it’s translating into pleasant listening that’s solidly in middle-of-the-road rock territory rather than actively looking for barriers to break down; it’s no accident that the album’s first track is “The Everyday.”

The lead single “Going Going Gone” is an apt opening act for The View Is Worth The Climb, demonstrating the album’s acoustic-leaning sound and hopeful lyrics. The only tracks that even threaten to break the album’s mid-tempo groove are “Wild Sweet Children” and “Can’t Be Found”, and those are really only a faster flavor of mid-tempo. My two favorite tracks, “Certain Way” and “Keep Talking”, dispense a bit with the carefree tone of the rest of the album, and the latter of the two almost has a ’70s AM radio groove going on.

3 out of 4Overall, The View Is Worth The Climb is a very pleasant listen, if not necessarily one that’ll get everyone out of their seats to dance. Laid-back and relaxing, it’s a nice bonus round of new music from someone who – as of his career-spanning retrospective just a couple of years ago – said he was ducking out of the studio for a while.

  1. The Everyday (3:13)
  2. The View Is Worth The Climb (3:57)
  3. Going Going Gone (3:49)
  4. All This And More (3:59)
  5. Wild Sweet Children (4:13)
  6. Everybody’s Wrong (3:16)
  7. Can’t Be Found (3:40)
  8. Opposite Sign (4:07)
  9. People Like Us (4:06)
  10. Certain Way (3:39)
  11. Keep Talking (3:49)

Released by: ABC Music
Release date: 2011
Total running time: 41:38

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Categories
2009 Artists (by group or surname) F Neil Finn Non-Soundtrack Music Tim Finn

7 Worlds Collide – The Sun Came Out

7 Worlds Collide - The Sun Came OutThe 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 Neil Finn and/or the talent to which any given track is credited. There a few old faces and a few new ones as well: many of the guest musicians are drawn from a somewhat more local talent pool, with a number of names who may be well known in New Zealand but perhaps not so much outside of the south Pacific.

Virtually the entire Finn family is present, naturally; Neil Finn duets with his wife Sharon on “Little By Little”, a song about the rapid approach of an empty nest at home, and he also duets with Liam Finn, his son who’s carving out a respectable career as a solo artist, on “Learn To Crawl”. Liam also gets a solo turn in the twisty waltz “Red Wine Bottle”, while his younger brother Elroy (who has already been playing live with Crowded House) gets the studio to himself for “The Cobbler”, and while he hasn’t quite carved out the unique sound that Liam has, Elroy still bears watching – as with his older brother, his voice gives away his lineage. Tim Finn also turns in a pleasant solo song, “Riding The Wave.” Fans of the Finn family tree certainly won’t be disappointed by this collection.

Neil’s signature production style permeates nearly every other track on the album, too. It could be argued that The Sun Came Out is perhaps a little less varied in style than the previous 7 Worlds Collide project; with the whole thing in the studio under Finn’s aegis, it’s easy to tell who was at the wheel. This doesn’t detract from the fact that there are some fantastic songs here: Don McGlashan’s “Make Your Own Mind Up” and the KT Tunstall/Bic Runga duet “Black Silk Ribbon” are two of the best songs I’ve heard out of anyone, anywhere, all year long. Liam Finn’s “Red Wine Bottle” is a low-key number that sticks in your head, while the cheery lead track, Johnny Marr and Neil Finn’s “Too Blue”, is enough to brighten anyone’s mood. I also have to single out Jeff Tweedy’s “You Never Know” for special praise: the tune, the performance and the production almost achingly remind me of early ’70s George Harrison, and this is not a bad thing. At all.

If I have a single complaint with The Sun Came Out, it’s that the first disc is a pure pop adrenaline rush, while the second seems to slow down. It really doesn’t, but somehow the second CD lacks the “oomph” packed by the first disc (which literally doesn’t let up for its entire running time). And disc two is no slouch by any means – we get a new Neil Finn solo number (“All Comedians Suffer”), Tim’s and Elroy’s songs, KT Tunstall’s “Hazel Black”, and another Don McGlashan number, “Long Time Gone”. There’s no letdown in quality but somehow there’s a slight darkening of mood.

4 out of 4But that’s a very minor quibble indeed; with the possible exception of Battlestar Galactica Season 4 (and let’s face it, in most cases these two projects are aimed at wildly different audiences), there’s not another two-disc set that’s going to give you this much enjoyment for the price – and once again, Finn & company are sharing the proceeds with charity, so there’s more feel-good to some of these feel-good songs than you might expect. Very, very highly recommended. (Now get back in the studio with Crowded House, Neil!)

Order this CDDisc One

  1. Too Blue – Johnny Marr with Neil Finn (4:01)
  2. You Never Know – Jeff Tweedy (4:18)
  3. Little By Little – Sharon Finn and Neil Finn (3:18)
  4. Learn To Crawl – Neil Finn & Liam Finn (4:59)
  5. Black Silk Ribbon – KT Tunstall & Bic Runga (3:48)
  6. Girl Make Your Own Mind Up – Don McGlashan (5:29)
  7. Run In The Dust – Johnny Marr (4:23)
  8. Red Wine Bottle – Liam Finn (4:26)
  9. The Ties That Bind Us – Phil Selway (3:22)
  10. Reptile – Lisa Germano (3:53)
  11. Bodhisattva Blues – Ed O’ Brien & Neil Finn (3:55)
  12. What Could Have Been – Jeff Tweedy (3:41)

Disc Two

  1. All Comedians Suffer – Neil Finn (4:28)
  2. Duxton Blues – Glenn Richards (3:35)
  3. Hazel Black – KT Tunstall (3:46)
  4. Riding The Wave – Tim Finn (3:32)
  5. The Witching Hour – Phil Selway (3:03)
  6. Over & Done – John Stirratt (3:41)
  7. A Change Of Heart – Bic Runga (3:14)
  8. Don’t Forget Me – Pat Sansone (3:38)
  9. Long Time Gone – Don McGlashan (4:02)
  10. The Cobbler – Elroy Finn (4:33)
  11. 3 Worlds Collide (3:06)
  12. The Water – Sebastian Steinberg (4:02)

Released by: Sony
Release date: 2009
Disc one total running time: 49:33
Disc two total running time: 44:40

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Categories
2007 Non-Soundtrack Music S Split Enz

Split Enz – The Rootin’ Tootin’ Luton Tapes

Split Enz - The Rootin' Tootin' Luton TapesFor much of of 1978, Split Enz seemed to have reached the end of the road. Having lost their label contract, their management, and almost all of their live work, the band was stranded in England with only a grant from the Queen Elizabeth Arts Council in their native New Zealand to sustain them through the lean times. At this point, lead singer/songwriter Tim Finn’s younger brother, Neil, had been with the band for less than a year. With no concerts to play, the emphasis was on writing and rehearsing (and, when they could afford it, recording) new material, and with Phil Judd having come and gone again, Neil had his first chance to try to add his own songwriting touch to the band’s sound. In June and July of 1978, the Enz converged on a studio in Luton to record their new material, with songs written by both of the Finns. And the irony of it is that only a few of those recordings have been heard until now.

Approximately half of the songs recorded at Luton were honed further and re-recorded from scratch as the group’s 1979 album Frenzy. The other half were occasionally dusted off (and sometimes re-recorded) as B-sides for singles (this being back in the days when there were still physical singles, and when those singles still had B-sides), while others never saw the light of day. Poised precariously between the original Split Enz remit of arty, complicated rock with ambitious arrangements and challenging tempo changes, and the group’s more sharply-focused ’80s pop-going-on-new-wave sound, these are the Luton sessions, revealed at last after 30 years to satisfy relentless pressure from the group’s loyal fans down through the years.

Is there a reason these recordings weren’t issued at some point back then? Well…yeah. They’re definitely diamonds in the rough, and there’s almost zero stylistic unity in the material. With nothing to lose (how much lower could they go from being unemployed in another country, with no recording contract and no promotion?), the band can clearly be heard revisiting its old sound, taking various approaches to revamping it, and even trying on and discarding whole new styles as they saw fit. The bulk of the songs are still Tim’s, though the tunes written by Neil are a revelation. Some of the songs represent his earliest songwriting efforts, as well as some of his earliest outings as a professional musician. His singing voice is, to be charitable, unrefined in places, but the pure catchiness of his songwriting offsets that. “Carried Away” and “Holy Smoke” originated here, as did “Late In Rome”, better known as “Serge”.

Tim’s contributions aren’t anything to sneeze at, however – “Semi-Detached” (one of my favorite songs that the man’s ever written), “Hypnotized”, “Next Exit” and “Remember When” originate from the Luton sessions, among many others. It’s with Tim’s songs that one can hear the most stylistic experimentation; “Hypnotized” is performed almost in the style of ’50s blues-rock, with a typically Enz twist, and some of Tim’s other tunes are similarly poised between the Enz’ early ’70s music-hall-inspired sound and more instantly accessible styles.

There are other landmarks to be heard here, especially if one has the two-disc version that was made available only to the Frenz Of The Enz fan club. That second disc, not available at retail, consists primarily of early mixes of the songs from Frenzy. Some of them, such as “Frenzy” itself, is in a decidedly unfinished form. But that disc also contains other tunes as well – Phil Judd’s last two contributions to the Enz as songwriter, “I’m So Up” and “So This Is Love”, are on the fan-club-only disc, as is “Livin’ It Up”, a song by relatively new recruit Nigel Griggs, which sees the Enz belly up to the edge of punk…and apparently back away slowly again. Judd’s two songs are a sharp reminder that, as much as some listeners regard him as the architect of the Enz’s weirder excesses, he was as capable of coming up with catchy, three-or-four-minute gems just as the Finn brothers were.

Other unusual writing credits appear; the first disc features a Griggs/Tim Finn collaboration, “Creature Comforts”, “Straight Talk” (co-written by the elder Finn and former Enz sax/horn player Robert Gillies, who had departed the band by this point and embarked on an art career that would later see him serving as, of all things, production designer for Xena: Warrior Princess), and an atmospheric-but-rather-strange song called “Animal Lover” by Eddie Rayner. These songs likely emerged from group jams – it was about as close as the Enz would ever get to an all-hands-pitch-in kind of band. The rest of the time, barring a few Eddie Rayner instrumentals, it seems that the band’s music came from the minds of Judd and/or one Finn or the other. It’s an interesting peek into avenues left unexplored. The first-ever songwriting collaboration between the Finn brothers, “Best Friend”, can also be heard, though it’s not something you’d probably be expecting if your indoctrination into the Finns’ duets was Woodface or the Finn Brothers albums.

It’s worth noting that purists might object to one thing: Rayner remixed many of the recordings, though not all. The two Judd songs originate from an appearance on the BBC’s Dave Lee Travis show, and some were left alone or had been mixed down and couldn’t be remixed. “Semi-Detached” is one such example of a song left untouched, and it certainly didn’t need any revising. But to be honest, purist or no, I’ve never heard the Luton tapes in their original state – and I doubt too many can say that they have either – so it’s not as if I have something to compare this release to so I can hear what’s changed. I also appreciate that the bulk of the Frenzy material is on the second disc only; as Frenzy is still available commercially, these alternate takes amount to music deleted scenes and outtakes (though the band is said to prefer the raw passion of the original recordings). Those who only want to hear stuff they’ve never heard before can do just fine with the single-disc version.

4 out of 4Ultimately, this collection, in either single or double disc form, may really be for-fans’-ears-only material. These aren’t new Split Enz songs (nor are there likely to be any), but the vast majority of the songs on the first disc, and a fair few on the second disc, will be new to most fans’ ears, and I’m not one to pass up on the chance to hear something new – or even just new-to-me – from either Finn. It’s a fascinating glimpse into the group’s “year from hell,” in an English summer three decades ago.

Order this CD

    Disc one
  1. Miss Haps (4:08)
  2. Home Comforts (4:13)
  3. Animal Lover (3:16)
  4. Carried Away (4:37)
  5. Semi-Detached (5:03)
  6. Holy Smoke (3:21)
  7. Message Boy (3:47)
  8. Hypnotised (3:41)
  9. Late In Rome (3:25)
  10. Straight Talk (3:23)
  11. Hollow Victory (3:23)
  12. Evelyn (3:16)
  13. Best Friend (3:04)
  14. Creature Comforts (2:52)
  15. Remember When (3:56)

Disc two – Frenz of the Enz version only

  1. Hermit McDermitt (5:02)
  2. Betty (6:13)
  3. I See Red (3:15)
  4. Mind Over Matter (3:09)
  5. Next Exit (3:54)
  6. She Got Body She Got Soul (2:57)
  7. So This Is Love (4:14)
  8. Abu Dhabi (4:53)
  9. Famous People (4:02)
  10. I’m So Up (2:58)
  11. Marooned (2:27)
  12. Livin’ It Up (1:17)
  13. Frenzy (3:07)

Released by: Rhino
Release date: 2007
Disc one total running time: 55:25
Disc two total running time: 47:28

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Categories
C Crowded House Neil Finn Non-Soundtrack Music

Crowded House – Farewell To The World

Farewell To The WorldOn November 24th, 1996, the original lineup of Crowded House (plus longtime touring musician and recent full-time recruit Mark Hart) took its final bow on the steps of the Sydney Opera House, with a crowd of somewhere around 200,000 people making it the biggest concert anywhere in the world that year – ironic when one considers that the whole thing started out with Neil Finn’s suggestion for a humble, small-scale farewell performance for the group’s final public outing…at least in that form.

Farewell To The World has wowed me for a long time, going all the way back to its VHS video release, and I’ve always wondered where in the world the obligatory CD was. To celebrate the tenth anniversary of the group’s final performance (as well as to get the Crowded House name back in the public eye just in time for a reunion album and tour), Farewell is finally available on CD and DVD, and it even sidesteps my natural inclination to grumble about re-releases that this edition includes some material that didn’t appear on my now well-worn videotape of the event. Still, this should’ve been on CD years ago.

It’s difficult to overstate just how good a live band Crowded House was. Part of the reason Neil Finn closed the books on Split Enz was to focus on a less “produced” sound that could be more faithfully captured on stage. At least that was the idea before the band teamed up with producer Mitchell Froom, who added churchy organ solos, sampled strings and horns, to name just a few of the touches which meant that the group couldn’t tour without a keyboard wizard in tow. But even with that in mind, the band pulls it off incredibly well here. Songs like “Private Universe” and “Hole In The River,” already more than listenable, take on new life here. (Even with two studio versions of “Private Universe” out there, I consider this performance to be the definitive reading.)

Farewell To The World was already a historical document of sorts, but with Paul Hester’s tragic death, it becomes even moreso. Paul gets his moment in the spotlight during “Sister Madly”, serving as both drummer and comedian, though his impression of Tina Turner falls a little bit flat when robbed of its visual component (file it under “you had to be there”); I’m a little surprised it’s actually on the CD at all. I don’t recall hearing “Italian Plastic” on the previous video release either. To say the whole band is on top form is a bit of an understatement, and I’ve especially got to single out Mark Hart’s luxurious walls of electric guitar feedback, never overpowering but always atmospheric.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about Farewell on CD is that it was a bit of, for the lack of a better term, “stealth marketing” presaging the return of Crowded House to the studio and the stage. I’m eagerly awaiting the new album and tour, but I can truthfully see where both camps are coming from (Pro-Crowdies Reunion vs. Get Back Together But Don’t Call It Crowded House Without Paul). As with the reunion itself, it’s too bad that it took a tragedy to finally get this into our CD players.

Order this CD

    Disc one:
  1. Mean To Me (4:11)
  2. World Where You Live (3:33)
  3. When You Come (5:54)
  4. Private Universe (5:35)
  5. Four Seasons In One Day (2:54)
  6. Fall At Your Feet (3:25)
  7. Whispers & Moans (4:30)
  8. Hole In The River (6:47)
  9. Better Be Home Soon (4:43)
  10. Pineapple Head (4:04)
  11. Distant Sun (4:51)
  12. Into Temptation (4:49)
  13. Everything Is Good For You (4:09)
    Disc two:
  1. Locked Out (3:49)
  2. Something So Strong (3:51)
  3. Sister Madly (4:54)
  4. Italian Plastic (3:51)
  5. It’s Only Natural (5:07)
  6. Weather With You (5:22)
  7. There Goes God (4:54)
  8. Fingers Of Love (5:35)
  9. In My Command (4:26)
  10. Throw Your Arms Around Me (2:57)
  11. Don’t Dream It’s Over (6:22)

Released by: Capitol
Release date: 2007
Disc one total running time: 59:25
Disc two total running time: 51:08

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Categories
2005 Film L Soundtracks

The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe

The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe soundtrackI’ve been ambivalent about the new film version of C.S. Lewis’ classic tale on many levels; for one, despite enjoying some of the past attempts that have been, to put it charitably, steeped in cheese, I’m just not sure this is something that can be accurately committed to the big screen. (Oddly enough, I have the same feeling about Dune – I’ve enjoyed various attempts to put it on film, but I’ve also been more than ready to say “okay, enough” at the next attempt.) This big-budget, big-screen, CGI-filled, Disney-backed version looks like it may actually convey the story satisfyingly. And if the soundtrack, released before the movie’s opening, is any indication, we may actually luck out this time.

Harry Gregson-Williams’ score, the main component of the soundtrack release, is gorgeous stuff. From its opening cue, The Blitz, 1940, it’s clear that much of the music will be in a traditional leitmotif mode, but Gregson-Williams still finds plenty of room for originality within that context. “The Blitz, 1940” cleverly uses rumbling, downward portamentos of brass to accompany the bombing of London, sounding almost like diving airplanes (who needs sound effects?). Things get decidedly more modern with “Evacuating London”, which almost sounds like it’s taking a few Enya-inspired pointers from Titanic in places.

Things settle down a bit until we actually step through the wardrobe, at which point the music conveys a great sense of the fantastic and the epic. There are numerous cues which – at least judging by their track titles – are lush, flowing travelogues, making for a very relaxing listen without quite fading into the blandness of background music. Having completely missed a few guesses in past “heard the music before I saw the movie” soundtrack reviews, I’m not even going to try to guess at how well the music fits the film, but it’s great stuff; out of the entire score, I will admit to having kept “The Blitz, 1940” and “The Battle” on repeat play quite a bit.

The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe deluxe soundtrackThere are four songs included on the tail end of the CD; Alanis Morissette fans will enjoy her track, “Wunderkind”, and I was stunned beyond belief to see Tim Finn turn in a new tune, “Winter Dream” (especially since I’m a fan of his work and hadn’t heard a peep about his participation). (I don’t know who worked the deal to get Tim on this soundtrack or how they did it, but hopefully he benefits from the exposure.) Imogen Heap contributes “Can’t Take It In”, while Lisbeth Scott, the vocalist who can be heard at several points in the score itself, gets a song to herself (“Where”). There’s also a nicely packaged two-disc “special edition” release; the contents of the soundtrack CD are identical, but the package also includes a DVD with interviews with composer Gregson-Williams, concept art galleries and trailers from the movie, and a few other promotional pieces.

rating: 4 out of 4All in all, The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe gets a very nice orchestral score with some modern touches (though not overpoweringly modern). If you’re looking for a good film score with a balance between action scenes and more contemplative cues, and something that’s not John Williams (nothing against Mr. Williams, but 2005 at the theater has been jam-packed with his music – Revenge Of The Sith, War Of The Worlds, Munich, Memoirs Of A Geisha…), this will do nicely.

Order this CD

  1. The Blitz, 1940 (2:32)
  2. Evacuating London (3:38)
  3. The Wardrobe (2:54)
  4. Lucy Meets Mr. Tumnus (4:10)
  5. A Narnia Lullaby (1:12)
  6. The White Witch (5:30)
  7. From Western Woods To Beaversham (3:34)
  8. Father Christmas (3:20)
  9. To Aslan’s Camp (3:12)
  10. Knighting Peter (3:48)
  11. The Stone Table (8:06)
  12. The Battle (7:08)
  13. Only The Beginning Of The Adventure (5:32)
  14. Can’t Take It In performed by Imogen Heap (4:42)
  15. Wunderkind performed by Alanis Morissette (5:19)
  16. Winter Light performed by Tim Finn (4:13)
  17. Where performed by Lisbeth Scott (1:54)

Released by: Walt Disney Records
Release date: 2005
Total running time: 70:44

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Categories
1992 Non-Soundtrack Music S Split Enz

Split Enz – Rear Enz

Split Enz - Rear EnzCollected here in one easy-to-grab chunk is the entire ’80s career of Split Enz, courtesy of Mushroom Records. Normally I rail against labels reissuing the unpteenth iteration of a band’s greatest hits, but since we’re getting the whole albums here, I can honestly give you hearty recommendations for this set. My big gripe with the five original albums included in this 6-CD box set has nothing to do with sound quality – everything was cleaned up by Enz keyboard whiz Eddie Rayner for this re-release – but everything to do with packaging. When the Split Enz 70s box set was released, there was at least some attempt to retain the original LP artwork, front and back, in some form. Not so here – and I wouldn’t be griping unless this omission involved the best back-cover art ever, Time & Tide‘s photo montage. Okay, so maybe that’s something not everyone’ll see as a problem, but it honked me off a bit. As I noted, had the same effort not been made for the 70s set, I would have shrugged it off more easily.

The real treasure here is the sixth disc, a bonus CD of non-album B-sides, demos and other rarities. Much more entertaining than the first box set’s disc of extras, this one is a solid slice of studio material with no live cuts (and really, why bother when The Living Enz has this part of the band’s career covered so well?). “Fire Drill” is an early Tim/Neil Finn collaboration (with Eddie Rayner getting a credit as well), and makes one wish that the Finn brothers had written more Split Enz material together – it’s definitely hit material. “Next Exit”, written by Tim and released as a stopgap single between albums in 1983, is another guilty favorite of mine – it’s goofy as hell lyrically, and yet still listenable. Other Tim songs – “Big Heart”, “Parasite”, “In The Wars”, “Remember When” – all have their own quirky appeal.

The real fascination here is the chance to witness – in an aural way at any rate – the evolution of songs that would later see release in other forms. Neil’s “I Walk Away” is heard in two early forms (“Your Inspiration” and the surprisingly disco-fied “Love & Success”, though portions of the latter became “Can’t Carry On”), with drastic steps yet to be made in both lyrics and the structure of the song’s melody itself. Even more revealing is Tim’s “Mr. Catalyst”, a jumpy dance tune which would be given entirely new lyrics and held back until his second solo album, Big Canoe, where it became “Spiritual Hunger” – though certain Eddie Rayner-penned instrumental breaks were lifted out of it completely and transplanted to Neil’s “Years Go By” on the final Split Enz album to great effect. Rayner also contributes an instrumental number all his own, “Over Drive”.

4 out of 4And the money shot of the Rear Enz bonus disc? Easy one – Neil’s “Serge”, a song dating back to his pre-Enz days in a band called After Hours (when it was titled Late In Rome). While it’d be easy to say that Rayner’s synth-sampled strings make the song, it’s a lovely example of Neil’s early ballad writing. (And it’s no surprise that it was a fan favorite in Crowded House’s live shows.)

Order this CDThe first five discs in this set are also available separately and have been reviewed previously: True Colours, Corroborree, Time & Tide, Conflicting Emotions and See Ya Round.

  1. Fire Drill (3:11)
  2. Your Inspiration (3:27)
  3. Parasite (2:44)
  4. Next Exit (4:15)
  5. Over Drive (4:17)
  6. Serge (4:06)
  7. In The Wars (4:08)
  8. Love & Success (3:43)
  9. Big Heart (3:41)
  10. Mr. Catalyst (2:59)
  11. Remember When (3:50)

Released by: Mushroom
Release date: 1992
Bonus disc total running time: 44:24

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Categories
1999 F Non-Soundtrack Music Tim Finn

Tim Finn – Say It Is So

3 min read

Order this CDFor his first non-soundtrack, non-Finn Brothers-related release in seven years, Tim Finn’s new album Say It Is So has received surprisingly small-scale distribution through a small indie label – a far cry from 1993’s criminally underpromoted Before & After, which was released on Capitol to little fanfare or critical acclaim. The new album, Tim’s first since getting married in 1998 and having his first child, is about as different from Before & After as brother Neil Finn’s first solo album was from anything Crowded House had done.

The CD kicks off with a pleasantly Beatles/ELO-ish effort called “Underwater Mountain”, complete with string backing. Things quickly get a little stranger with “Shiver”, one of several songs which seem to be trying to drag Tim’s sound into a dub/trance/house-inspired style, with varying degrees of success. Arguably, the best of these experiments is “Big Wave Rider”, where effects and filters are piled high onto the voices about as thickly as possible. With repeated listening, I’ve actually gotten to like “Big Wave Rider” better than anything else on the album! It’s rather infectiously catchy.

When not trying to modernize his sound, Tim’s music ranges from pleasant to puzzling. Pleasant, in the form of the first single, “Twinkle”, which is easily the most commercial song on the CD, and possibly the best; and puzzling, as in “Good Together”, a nice song with perfectly good lyrics which receives an odd vocal treatment, somewhere between Rod Stewart’s early “Maggie May”-era style and a teenage boy colliding head-on with puberty. Tim reportedly used first takes for most of the album’s tracks, which is an interesting experiment, but the vocal styling on “Good Together” is just enough to make the whole song sound just a little bit off, though its rough heartfelt charm is more than enough to salvage it. The thrashing anguish of “Need To Be Right” is also a highlight. The deceptively relaxing “Death Of A Popular Song” has some rather amusing lyrics, some of Tim’s best in years. Several of the songs’ lyrics on Say It Is So were written by Tim’s new wife Marie, and I have to say that, as with all of Tim’s musical collaborations with family in the past, she does bring something to the table from a lyrical standpoint. Then again, I also liked most of the songs on Big Canoe, where the lyrics were written by someone other than Tim, a move he himself later regretted.

For the first time in many years – since his first solo effort, 1983’s Escapade – Tim’s Split Enz cohorts and his brother Neil do not make even the smallest appearance on the album. (This may have more to do with the fact that the sessions were in Nashville than any family politics.)

Say It Is So is, overall, another good collection from one of the founding fathers of Split Enz, even if a couple of tracks are rough around the edges.

4 out of 4

  1. Underwater Mountain (3:56)
  2. Shiver (4:21)
  3. Good Together (3:15)
  4. Roadtrip (3:25)
  5. Need To Be Right (4:32)
  6. Twinkle (3:30)
  7. Big Wave Rider (3:20)
  8. Death of a Popular Song (4:23)
  9. Some Dumb Reason (3:03)
  10. Rest (4:39)

Released by: Sonny’s Pop
Release date: 2000
Total running time: 42:21

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Categories
1981 Non-Soundtrack Music S Split Enz

Split Enz – Corroborree (a.k.a. Waiata)

1 min read

Order this CDThis album contains the first song I ever heard by Split Enz, “History Never Repeats”, as well as quite a few other gems. Where True Colours tended to fall into a single stylistic rut replete with organ solos and choppy guitar work, Corroborree is much more diverse and much smoother, and Neil Finn continues to assert his growing musical talent with each outing, his contributions now at least equaling those of older brother Tim. Neil’s standout tunes include “Iris”, “One Step Ahead”, “Ships” and the single “History Never Repeats” (which was actually my first exposure to the Enz). Tim, however, also 3 out of 4turned in the wonderfully silly “I Don’t Wanna Dance” (gratingly but humorously sung just perfectly out of key!), “Ghost Girl” and “Walking Through the Ruins”. Tim’s songs stick to the past Split Enz formula of musical comedy, and in that way, his material is perhaps closer to the original intention of Split Enz than Neil’s. Overall, a good album.

  1. Hard Act To Follow (3:17)
  2. One Step Ahead (2:52)
  3. I Don’t Wanna Dance (3:34)
  4. Iris (2:50)
  5. Wail (2:49)
  6. Clumsy (3:29)
  7. History Never Repeats (3:00)
  8. Walking Through the Ruins (4:15)
  9. Ships (3:01)
  10. Ghost Girl (4:26)
  11. Albert of India (4:03)

Released by: Mushroom
Release date: 1981
Total running time: 37:36

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