VIA PRESS RELEASE | “Quincy Jones says it’s about leaving space for God to walk through the room. I can hear that on Finn. You might not want to acknowledge it for fear that it’ll go as soon as it’s arrived. But it’s there. And if you can capture that moment on tape, it’ll be there forever.” —Ed O’Brien, Radiohead
Needle Mythology are proud to announce that they will be reissuing a special expanded album edition of Finn, the debut album by The Finn Brothers. Initially released in 1995 to acclaim both from critics and long-time fans who had followed the pair’s work since their time together in Split Enz and Crowded House, this is the first time that Finn has received a vinyl release.
Tim Finn: “Making this record felt like freedom. Neil, myself, and Tchad Blake carved out a space that (to quote Nabokov) was pure “aesthetic bliss.” We took a few half-written songs, a T-Chest bass, and an ancient Chamberlin into an Auckland studio and a few weeks later came out with a finished album that was unlike anything we’d done before.”
Neil Finn recalls the recording sessions: “From the first day in York St studios with Tim and Tchad, we felt free to make any kind of sound we fancied, there was no template to follow for a Finn Bothers record. We just wanted to play everything ourselves. The old Chamberlin keyboard I had just shipped back from LA played sampled loops and orchestra sounds with actual tapes.
I really wanted it to be a big feature of the record, but the first time I started playing it and before we realised, all the tapes unspooled out off the back and ended up on the floor. It seemed to be a pre-emptive humbling, like a symbolic trial sent by the universe. Tim and I are not renowned at all for our practical Mr Fixit skills, but we spent the best part of the first day on the floor delicately untangling and restoring the tapes into place and voila… it worked (most of the notes anyway), the Chamberlin was back and ready to play a pivotal part in the sound of Finn. Mood Swinging Man, Where Is My Soul, Angels Heap, all dressed up with its wonky, exotic textures. That small victory set us on the path to discover other unexpected talents and find new ways of approaching arrangement.”
Compiled in close collaboration with Tim and Neil, Finn is accompanied by The Finn Demos, which gathers together ten songs from 1989’s legendary Murchison St sessions, remastered by Miles Showell at Abbey Road Studios. Convening at Neil’s new Melbourne apartment with a view to making an album together, Tim and Neil embarked on an intensely productive period, writing songs that would result in Tim joining Crowded House. Songs from these sessions were eventually released on Crowded House’s Woodface and Together Alone and on Before and After by Tim Finn.
Assisted by the late Paul Hester on drums, the demos captured a host of songs that would be played in arenas around the world, including ‘Four Seasons In One Day’, ‘It’s Only Natural’ and ‘Weather With You’ which features an extra verse. The demos are making their commercial debut on vinyl along with the previously unreleased song ‘Four Stepping in 3/4 Time.’
For this release, long-time fan and collaborator on Neil Finn’s 7 Worlds Collide project, Ed O’Brien from Radiohead, has contributed liner notes, hymning the album’s “heavy” beauty and its “elemental energy.” The artwork for expanded Finn features newly unearthed images of Tim and Neil taken by Darryl Ward during the sessions for the album. For this release, Tim and Neil have also shared the “listening notes” submitted by their parents, something they would do for every song their sons wrote.
The expanded double album edition of Finn has been cut at Abbey Road by Miles Showell, who also mastered the demos, and pressed on 180g vinyl at The Vinyl Factory. Of this release, Needle Mythology co-founder Pete Paphides says, “As a life-long fan of the Finn brothers’ music in all its incarnations, I’m grateful that Tim and Neil have given us the opportunity to re-present their work to the world in a manner that befits the magic of these sessions. The experience of hearing these songs emerge from the speakers at Abbey Road is one I’ll never forget.”
TRACKLISTING
Side One
Only Talking Sense
Eyes Of The World
Mood Swinging Man
Last Day Of June
Suffer Never
Angels Heap
Side Two
Niwhai
Where Is My Soul
Bullets In My Hairdo
Paradise (Wherever You Go)
Kiss The Road Of Rarotonga
FINN DEMOS
Side Three
Catherine Wheels (Demo)
Prodigal Son (Demo)
Four-Stepping In 3/4 Time (Demo – previously unreleased)
There Goes God (Demo)
It’s Only Natural (Demo)
Side Four
Weather With You (Demo)
Strangeness And Charm (Demo)
Four Seasons In One Day (Demo)
In Love With It All (Demo)
How Will You Go (Demo)
