Tim Finn
Tim Finn’s odyssey has been our own. For that is the beauty of music. We surrender to it and we ride in the slipstream.
Is there anything more natural than Tim Finn conjuring music? As organic and intuitive as the elements that pulse inside his songs: stars, skies, trees, mountains, rivers, oceans –standing the test of time, offering sustenance and solace, gathering beauty and meaning with each unfolding evolution.
Brian Timothy Finn grew up in thrall to The Beatles and The Kinks. He speaks still of Ray Davies’ Waterloo Sunset with the misty-eyes of first love; a three minute slice of pure pop – a classic art form he too would come to master with Six Months In A Leaky Boat and Weather With You among so many others. Early forays into songwriting with his Split Ends co-founder, Phil Judd, were often more epic endeavours; maverick youth pushing the boundaries, testing the water with exhilarating high dives rather than a timid toe. As a boy, tucked up in bed in the dead of night, listening to these phantasmagorical recordings through the headphones of my dinky cassette player, I was transported on kaleidoscopic aural adventures, grand and intrepid. Listening to early Split Enz felt like being lured spellbound through an enchanted forest towards a secret circus of your dreams.
Since he was a boy the vast, infinite enigma of the cosmos has captivated Tim Finn, firing his poetic imagination and existential ruminations. Pioneering astronauts speak of journeying all the way to the moon and feeling as if they had discovered the earth – gazing back on this blue marble suspended in space, seeing their home profoundly anew, humbled and awed by the revelation of perspective. For me, this Anthology is the moon and the artist’s entire body of work the earth – each inextricably linked, earth’s natural satellite a companion locked in orbit, affecting tides and moods with its mysterious gravitational pull.
North South East West shines upon us, luminous and wondrous, like a hypnotic full moon, ripe with inspiration, a celebration of all that has gone before and all that is still to come.
Long may the odyssey continue.