"In a good conversation, everyone
contributes equally"
'The Conversation' is the brilliant new studio
album from Tim Finn. Organic, intimate, introspective, celebratory - 'The Conversation'
sounds and feels like no other record the great singer/songwriter has ever produced.
Economy and clarity - music and emotion stripped bare. Make it as real and
honest as possible. Everyone involved contributing equally. That's what Tim Finn
was thinking long before work on 'The Conversation' began.
There's a
verse in the song "Straw To Gold", which opens 'The Conversation', where
Tim sings: "Lay down your heart/Break the world apart/Somewhere in the middle
we could make a start." That sort of sums up what Tim knew had to happen
before The Conversation could progress.
"Come down, come down from
your imaginary kingdom," Tim sings on another of 'The Conversation's' new
tracks, "Imaginary Kingdom" [a song which, of course, takes its name
from Tim's last solo album, 2006's rich and majestic Imaginary Kingdom.]
Still,
it's hard to pinpoint exactly how 'The Conversation' finally got started. In a
manner of speaking, it's a song cycle that begins with a track called "More
Fool Me" and ends with another entitled "Forever Thursday" - two
of the most personal and honest songs that Tim Finn has ever committed to record.
But that hardly tells the whole story - those two songs don't even appear on the
track-list in that order.
Tim Finn had long ago thought about making
an album of new songs using only the most intimate of instrumentation. No bass
or drums. Just a small band of players in a room, playing real instruments, an
unexpected line-up, all contributing equally. A recording that sounded like nothing
else. Exactly what that sound was or how it might come to be, only time would
tell.
In the meanwhile, as always, there were so many other musical projects
Tim was involved in, so much other music he was making and playing.
Just
in recent years, there's been a new Finn Brothers' record, 'Everyone Is Here'
[2004], which Tim and brother Neil supported with an extensive world tour. There's
been a sold-out reunion concert tour through Australia and New Zealand with Tim's
original outfit, the legendary Split Enz, the band he formed while still a student
at Auckland University in the early 1970s.
There's also a new theatre
work called 'Poor Boy', a play with songs written by Matt Cameron and based on
Tim's songs - old and new, which will have its world premiere season with the
Melbourne Theatre Company in early 2009, starring Australian actor Guy Pearce.
The Sydney Theatre Company will also stage 'Poor Boy' in mid 2009.
Then,
of course, there was Tim's most recent solo release, the widescreen 'Imaginary
Kingdom' [2006], recorded in Nashville with producer Bobby Huff. In this past
year alone, a lot of Tim's time and toil has been dedicated to constantly touring
through towns and cities across the US, supporting 'Imaginary Kingdom's' belated
North American release.
It was on a trip through England early in 2007,
at the start of the international touring cycle in support of 'Imaginary Kingdom',
that Tim reconnected with an old mate, classical violinist Miles Golding - a member
of the very first incarnation of Split Enz way back in 1972.
Miles Golding
holds the unique honour of being the first member asked to join Split Enz [or
Split Ends, as they were originally called] by Tim and the group's co-founder,
Phil Judd. Miles also holds the less salubrious title of being the first member
ever to leave Split Enz. While he was only in the group for a few months, Miles'
training in classical music had a profound effect in shaping Split Enz's early
sound and direction, heavily influencing the trajectory of Tim Finn's own life
and career.
Miles left Split Enz early in 1973 and traveled to England
to further his classical training. And that's where he's remained ever since,
living life as a professional violinist. The old friends kept in touch over the
years and early in 2007, Tim asked Miles if he'd like to join him onstage at a
couple of his British shows. They were special performances, Miles accompanying
Tim on the classic early Split Enz track, "Time For A Change", written
by Phil Judd but which Miles had helped arrange all those years ago.
Tim
gave Miles a demo of a new song he'd written called "More Fool Me".
It was essentially a song about Tim's tempestuous relationship with that other
old distant mate of theirs, Phil Judd, with whom Tim had also recently reconnected,
catching up for the first time in years when Split Enz were inducted into the
Australian music Hall of Fame in 2005.
Who better to appreciate the sentiment
of "More Fool Me" than Miles, who was there at the very start? Tim suggested
that perhaps they could have a go at recording it together the next time Miles
paid one of his regular visits back to New Zealand.
It wouldn't be long.
Miles made plans to travel to Auckland in November 2007, so Tim organised for
the pair to catch up at Neil's Roundhead Studios. Tim also invited along his regular
guitarist of the past five years, Brett Adams, his constant musical cohort during
all the recent touring, as well as legendary Split Enz keyboardist and producer,
Eddie Rayner.
Aside from the recent Split Enz reunion tour, Tim and Eddie
also hadn't worked together in ages. They'd briefly come together for Eddie's
symphonic ENZO project in the mid-1990s, but otherwise hadn't shared a studio
since the final Split Enz albums in the early 1980s.
As soon as this unusual
quartet - violin, two guitars and organic keyboards - struck its first chord,
Tim instantly knew he'd found the sound of his next album. All those loose ideas
about a sparse, semi-acoustic album - a small, tight ensemble with everyone contributing
equally - suddenly fell into stark focus.
"I didn't have any intention
of making an album at that stage," says Tim, "but it just came together
so well that I just knew when I heard it back through the speakers, straight away,
that's what I want to do with my record. That was it. From that point on, I was
still writing, but I knew that was the direction."
Plans were quickly
made to reconvene in Roundhead Studios in April 2008 for a three-week recording
session. Eddie Rayner would produce, alongside a young American engineer named
Ethan Allen, an alumni of Daniel Lanois's studios [and guitarist in Californian
rock band , Gram Rabbit].
In the meantime, Tim set about completing a
new body of songs for the project. A total of 18 would be written, 13 of which
would make the final cut.
Tim didn't have to look far for inspiration
for these new songs: Inspiration was all around him. "It's a very personal
record," Tim explains. "It came from living at home."
Several
songs came straight out of Tim's life at home in Auckland. "Out Of This World",
the first single to be lifted from The Conversation, is an instantly classic,
melodic Tim Finn love song. It's a piece that was hanging around unfinished for
ages, up to 15 years, but it finally edged towards completion when Tim needed
a new song to feature in the Poor Boy musical. But the track's other-worldliness
came courtesy of the littlest love in Tim's life, his five-year-old daughter Elliot.
Tim bought her a tiny replica NASA astronaut suit, which is her favourite thing
to wear while floating around the house. "She's this completely gorgeous
little astronaut," laughs Tim.
One of The Conversation's more somber
moments, the beautiful and pained "Invisible", was a song Tim says he
felt impelled to write about a young woman in his neighbourhood who was killed
in a hit-and-run. "She worked in a cake shop and we just had this great connection
with her and the next minute her life is gone. The whole area was in shock. It
was just this great outpouring of grief. And I wrote this song for her, not because
I thought I've got to write a song for her - it just happened."
The
gorgeous "The Saw And The Tree" was inspired by a family trip to a forest
area up north in New Zealand, standing among the giant trees. "It's like
being in a cathedral, there's a sense of awe," Tim says. The surrounding
areas that had been stripped of their vegetation led to the idea of a saw apologising
to a tree. The sweet, haunting lead instrument on the recording is actually, in
fact, a saw, played by New Zealand's leading bowed saw player, 75-year-old Alan
Pitts.
Other songs, naturally, were inspired by Tim's recent travels through
North America. "Snowbound" literally presented itself when Tim and guitarist
Brett Adams found themselves snowbound in Milwaukee, driving in through a blizzard
from Chicago to find their show had been cancelled. "Stuck in a hotel room,
what else can you do? Write a song!" Tim laughs. "So this one is for
the people of Milwaukee."
For all its light and shade, its space
and rich, unique melodies, the most personal moment of all in The Conversation
comes in the final song Tim wrote for the project - "Forever Thursday".
It is, quite literally, the story of the first time Tim met his wife, Marie Azcona,
who alongside Tim is credited as The Conversation's executive producer.
Tim
says meeting Marie 12 years ago changed his life. Together they have two children,
Harper and Elliot, and aside from executive producer, Marie can also take the
credit as Tim's muse.
"Marie, my wife, was very much part of this
record," says Tim. "We were both talking about it. I'd write a song
and we'd bounce it off each other and then I'd play it around the house a lot,
we'd go for drives and play it in the car."
"Marie is so much
a part of my world and I'm lucky because she has great taste and is able to analyse
and be very clear in her opinions about music. She loves music and I think any
songwriter benefits from that kind of relationship, whether it's a wife or producer
or best friend. You want to have someone there whom you believe even more than
yourself sometimes. I've definitely got that and I'm very fortunate. So that song
is very much about her. It sort of just welled up in me over the course of the
album, how much I owe her."
Tim wrote "Forever Thursday"
as recording of 'The Conversation' neared completion. "There were a lot of
memories, a lot of romance and a lot of gratitude in that song," he says.
"It just kind of poured out of me. And I was glad to get one in there for
her."
Three weeks locked inside Roundhead Studios and 'The Conversation'
was finished. "We were in the studio every day, all of us were there every
day, very involved in it. It was great. It was lovely to reconnect and finally
do it, make a whole record with Miles and Eddie. It was very hands-on, very kind
of hand-made."
"As simple as it is, it had a lot of good minds
at work. A lot of care and guidance. The simple instrumentation creates a sense
of spaciousness. That's what I was hoping to get and not second-guess it. Just
people playing one or two takes. Not a lot of overdubbing, so it's got a performance
value to it."
From the sparse opening notes of "Straw To Gold",
it's gloriously obvious that 'The Conversation' is a Tim Finn album like no other.
'The
Conversation' is out now.
