Tim Finn – North, South, East, West…: Anthology
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 Tim Finn compilation, but crams in the better part of a best of Split Enz best-of album and selections from Crowded House (well, after a fashion) and the Finn Brothers, in addition to the obligatory new songs designed to hook in everyone who’s already bought all of Tim’s previous work.
With that in mind, you have to forgive North, South, East, West…‘s inherent schizophrenia. The one common thread linking all of this very disparate material is Finn’s extremely versaitle voice. Whether it’s the very orchestrated sound of Split Enz or the relatively stripped-down guitar wash of Crowded House or the Finn Brothers, Finn’s voice cuts through the whole mix every time. His solo work has darted back and forth between more ornamented, Enz-like songs and more acoustic fare, so even if you set aside his non-solo projects, there’s no one sound dominating the entire 2-CD set.
The obligatory new material includes songs we haven’t heard before, and new recordings of songs that we have. Finn covers Split Enz’s “Stuff And Nonsense” as a duet with Missy Higgins, and gives Crowded House’s “It’s Only Natural” a similar treatment with Bic Runga riding shotgun. He also covers the Crowded House hit-in-some-parts-of-the-world “Weather With You” with Neil and Liam Finn. Also included are very stripped-down new versions of “So Deep” (from his very-produced, dance-rhythm-heavy second solo album Big Canoe) and Crowded House’s “How Will You Go”, and an instrumental piano cover of a portion of Split Enz’s “Poor Boy”. I felt that a partial cover was a little bit of a cheat (especially when it’s done so well), and “So Deep” already wasn’t my favorite song from Big Canoe, and it doesn’t really benefit from the toned-down rethink. I’m much more partial to “How Will You Go” in its original form, so this new recording, relieved of most of its beautiful vocal harmonies, certainly doesn’t supplant the original. It’s interesting to note that none of the Crowded House songs on this collection are the original recordings – all of them are re-interpretations.
Fortunately, the genuinely new tracks are a treat: “Into The Water” and especially the jumpy “Light Years Away” are up there with the best of Finn’s output over the past decade, and “Nothing Unusual” winds up being a kind of theme song for the whole compilation: it borrows the main riff from “Many’s The Time” and namechecks Enz chestnuts like “Maybe” and “Malmsbury Villa”, and the lyrics talk about the inspiration for songs in general – it’s a song about when one writes and performs songs, a bit of a meta-song, and a pleasant one at that.
Listening back to the songs chosen from Finn’s large body of solo work, I have to say that generally, the songs are very well-chosen; it seems like Big Canoe and Finn’s self-titled 1989 album were buried for some reason (and I still count the latter among his very best solo work), and his work from the musical stage production Steel City isn’t represented at all, but as many labels as Finn has 
been on over the years there may be issues there (which may also explain the Crowded House oddity noted above). Once the compilation moves on to music from 1993’s Before & After, things tend to line up, more or less, with the Tim Finn best-of mixes that I’ve been creating for myself for years. Considering how hard it’s become to find some of Tim Finn’s material, this compilation is probably a good idea for those curious about his work.
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Disc One
- I See Red performed by Split Enz (3:17)
- My Mistake performed by Split Enz (3:02)
- Poor Boy performed by Split Enz (3:23)
- Six Months In A Leaky Boat performed by Split Enz (4:23)
- I Hope I Never performed by Split Enz (4:36)
- Dirty Creature performed by Split Enz (4:01)
- Maybe performed by Split Enz (2:53)
- Stuff And Nonsense performed by Tim Finn & Missy Higgins (3:27)
- Fraction Too Much Friction (4:10)
- Made My Day (3:20)
- So Deep (4:15)
- How’m I Gonna Sleep (3:52)
- Not Even Close (4:18)
- Many’s The Time (4:20)
- Persuasion (3:52)
- Into The Water (3:14)
- Nothing Unusual (4:02)
Disc Two
- Weather With You performed by Tim, Neil & Liam Finn (3:43)
- How Will You Go (2:59)
- It’s Only Natural performed by Tim Finn & Bic Runga (3:44)
- Underwater Mountain (3:55)
- Dead Man (4:04)
- What You’ve Done (3:43)
- Subway Dreaming (4:16)
- Angels’ Heap performed by the Finn Brothers (2:50)
- Disembodied Voices performed by the Finn Brothers (3:37)
- Luckiest Man Alive performed by the Finn Brothers (3:59)
- Winter Light (4:11)
- Couldn’t Be Done (2:53)
- Astounding Moon (3:36)
- Straw To Gold (3:58)
- Out Of This World (3:01)
- The Saw And The Tree (4:05)
- Light Years Away (3:09)
- Poor Boy (instrumental) (1:31)
Released by: Capitol / EMI
Release date: 2009
Disc one total running time: 64:25
Disc two total running time: 63:14
For 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.
Ultimately, 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.
Collected 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.
This two-disc set of rarities, B-sides, unreleased cuts, soundtrack one-offs and live performances span the whole gamut of the membership of Split Enz over 18 years. From the earliest solo/side projects of former Enzers to recent works, Other Enz is, contrary to what one Amazon.com reviewer says, a very nice find for any Enz fanz or, for that matter, fans of Crowded House or either of the Finn Brothers. Billing it as nothing more than a Split Enz-centric collection almost limits this collection’s appeal too much. Highlights include some early Tim Finn solo tunes, two very hard-to-find Crowded House tunes (a cover of The Zombies’ “She’s Not There” from the soundtrack for The Crossing and a live performance of their well-loved cover of Hunters & Collectors’ “Throw Your Arms Around Me”), and vastly more obscure items such as solo singles by Noel Crombie, ex-bassist Malcolm Green, and founding guitarist Phil Judd. Offshoot bands such as Citizens’ Band, The Makers, and Schnell Fenster are also represented.
This is one of the very few live albums I have ever really liked. The audience is plenty noisy, but the band revels in the feedback. Some of the classic Enz tunes have never sounded better, represented by “Time For A Change”, “Bold As Brass” and an absolutely beautiful rendition of “Charlie”. Tim Finn rejoined the group for the farewell tour that sparked this album, and the lively banter between he and Neil is often almost as entertaining as the music itself. There are few albums I can think of – not even the aforementioned Parsons live CD – that are almost like being there. This one definitely qualifies. It’s reasonably easy to find – despite being an import and a double disc, it’s generally easier to find than most Australian 
Yet another live winner from Split Enz, this album consists of recordings from the group’s 20th anniversary reunion tour (which, if I might hazard a guess, probably had a lot to do with inspiring ENZSO). Anniversary’s performances seem to benefit from the fact that, unlike The Living Enz, by this time Tim and Neil Finn had both matured and changed their musical outlooks somewhat. Though the material is still faithful to the original Enz studio renditions, one can catch more than a slight hint of Tim’s solo work when Tim reprises old favorites like “Charlie” and “Time For A Change”, and Neil’s Crowded House sound sneaks into such numbers as “History Never Repeats” and especially “Message To My Girl”. One great inclusion is “Split Ends”, the band’s first single in the early 70s, whose lyric “it’s all the same to me, brother” takes on a new dimension when Tim and Neil sing it (since the song was written years before Neil joined Split Enz in 1977). There’s also a lot of fun on-stage banter when Noel Crombie takes a bow after the end of “Strait Old Line” 
This is a rather curious concept. For all the wonderful melodies that emanated from New Zealand’s Split Enz from the early 70s through 1985, I’d never really thought of them as potential orchestral numbers, though they tend toward complex arrangements (which is surprising, as many interviews with Enz keyboardist Eddie Rayner, who initiated this project, revealed that few if any of the band’s players are actually formally-trained musicians). The album kicks off with a haunting and majestic rendition of “Poor Boy” and it’s instantly evident that the quality and intensity of the arrangements have been magnified immensely. I’d heard some very lukewarm (and a couple of downright cold) reviews on the ability of the group’s more standard-issue pop songs to translate into full symphonic arrangements. Possibly the best example of this is the medley of “Stranger Than Fiction” and “Time For A Change”, two songs from the band’s first album which were full of menace and anguish, which are given an even greater tension in this new medium. Even the cartoony “My Mistake” sounds great, going from its circus-organ-like original to a loud and clumsy brass band (kudos to the NZSO for playing quite so badly in just the right places!) One of the most surprising transformations occurs with Tim Finn’s “I Hope I Never”, beautifully sung by Annie Crummer against a backdrop of real strings – not synthesized as in the original. The switcheroo of singers is a fun guessing game; Dave Dobbyn takes over some of Tim’s old falsetto favorites such as “Poor Boy”, while Neil and Tim share vocals on “Stranger Than Fiction” and Neil takes “Stuff And Nonsense” over from his older brother. “Under The Wheel” is recited entirely by poet Sam Hunt with a truly jazzy rendition of the music behind him. Original Enz percussionist Noel Crombie returns to the instrument that made him famous in the early days, playing spoons – specifically the spoon/piano break from “The Woman Who Loves You” is jammed into the middle of “Strait Old Line”, which sounds virtually nothing at all like its original incarnation. In all, this is an outstanding album – the novelty of hearing the Finns singing with an orchestral backing, hearing these old arrangements punched up to maximum intensity with a huge ensemble, and the sheer quality of the whole thing. I know the notoriety of ENZSO would wear off if it were overdone, but I’d love to hear some more of those old Split Enz tunes given this treatment someday. A definite 
This was the first hint of the studio-polished Enz as well as the first glimpse of a much heavier, more electric sound to come. When this album was recorded, things were not going well for the band – they were stranded in England, broke, and shortly after their studio sessions, their instruments and equipment were lost in a fire just before a concert date in support of the new album. The resulting frustrations and tensions are evident on the music, which is harder-hitting all around. Neil Finn begins to make his voice 
heard on this album, which offers a preview of the band’s style in the 80s. The best bits from Frenzy include the Tim & Neil collaboration “Give It A Whirl”, the poignant “Stuff And Nonsense”, and the uncharacteristically heavy “Abu Dhabi” and “Mind Over Matter”. 
The band’s second album curiously rehashed several songs from their first, but beefed up and fine-tuned the group’s sound considerably and, including some new gems (many of them actually new recordings of the Enz’s earliest singles and live favorites), created a vastly superior album. The vocals are more straightforward than the old-man-telling-a-story approach used by Phil Judd on Mental Notes, and the entire group is in fine form, consistently cohesive for what would be the last time in