Renowned Kiwi singer-songwriter Tim Finn (Split Enz, Crowded House) and legendary guitarist and producer Phil Manzanera (Roxy Music) will release their collaborative debut album Caught By The Heart on August 27, via Expression Records.
Caught By The Heart comprises a selection of 10 songs. The music covers a range of styles and genres: rock, pop, prog, Latin, reggae, classical, chamber orchestra type pieces. No genre was off limits. All drawn from Phil’s extensive musical palette, inspired by his love of music regardless of where it comes from. This coupled with Tim’s extraordinary, literate and well observed lyrics – as well as the phenomenal range of international guest musicians – has resulted in a sophisticated, shapeshifting album and a remarkable collaboration.
On collaborating with Tim, Phil Manzanera said:
“It’s March 2020, lockdown has been announced in the UK and I am sitting looking at my screen saver on my computer, showing an island in the Pacific. Up pops an email from Tim asking if I have any ‘Latin Grooves’ By lucky happenstance, I did, as I’d been writing for a possible Latin music album. And from then our course was set. For the next 18 months, while the world was being pulled out of its familiar shape, Tim and I would be travelling, virtually, between New Zealand and the UK, backwards and forwards, through our respective days and nights, exchanging musical ideas and creating songs of every musical genre starting with those Latin grooves but with no particular destination other than doing good work.
The first ten of the twenty-three songs we wrote are on this first album. It’s been therapeutic for me to have my mind engrossed in this creative process and to work again with Tim, one of the great singer songwriters. It has also been inspiring to have these talented musicians and friends accompanying us on this journey, they are truly our ‘Galleon of Stars.’
For me, this is what a world music album is all about.”
On collaborating with Phil, Tim Finn said:
“In March 2020, as NZ entered its first lockdown, I reached out to Phil in the UK and asked him if he had any slow Latin grooves I could work with. There’s always been something in the uplift and syncopation of this music, no matter how dark the times, that offers a refuge. We had worked before with musicians from Cuba and Columbia when I was based in the UK, and our project quickly fell into place once we began writing together again. Meanwhile the world was decelerating. And shrinking. A feeling of global interconnectedness was the one positive effect of the disturbing images we all saw in the early days of the pandemic. I wrote lyrics in Spanish and Italian. I wrote about Cuba where I had been in the 80’s after a Chilean musician had introduced me to salsa one night in Rome. Our daughter Elliot was home more than usual and ended up singing on the highly evocative instrumental tracks Phil was sending. I remember one night listening back to a new tune and watching my shadow dancing on the wall. I hope you feel as good as I did then when you hear them.”
45 years after they first worked together, Finn and Manzanera have global lockdown to thank for bringing them back into musical contact again. The time and space of a pandemic-restricted life has led to an incredible period of artistic creativity. This artistic freedom has produced songs that live in the moment. They are a moving and inspiring testament to a great singer-songwriter and composer-guitarist coming together in cyber-space and seeing where the music takes them.
Tim Finn and Phil Manzanera met each other in Sydney in 1975, when Tim’s band, Split Enz, supported Phil’s band, Roxy Music, on the English band’s first Australian tour. This led to Phil producing the Split Enz album ‘Second Thoughts’, when they came to the UK the following year. Over the subsequent years, their paths would cross periodically, with Tim singing and writing songs for Phil’s ‘K- Scope’ and ‘Southern Cross’ albums, and Phil doing guest spot with Tim in the UK. Tim and Phil last saw each other in Auckland in 2011 for The Roxy Music Reunion’ tour.
Caught By The Heart was produced by Phil Manzanera and Tim Finn and recorded by all the musicians in the UK, U.S., South Africa, Germany and New Zealand (full list of the musicians below) and mastered at Abbey Road.
Caught By The Heart follows the acclaimed debut E.P of the same name.
