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TIM FINN
AND PHIL MANZANERA
Release Collaboration Album
‘CAUGHT BY THE HEART’
A Multi-Genre, Multi-generational and Multi-National Collection of Songs
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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.”
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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.
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CAUGHT BY THE HEART
Track listing:
Mambo! Salsa!…
The Cry Of The Earth
Caught By The Heart
La Ruleta De La Fortuna
All That’s Human
Malecón
Bajo Luz Distinta
Galleon Of Stars
Vamos Despacio
La Musica Del Tiempo
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Musicians
Tim Finn: Vocals, keyboards, programming
Phil Manzanera: Guitars, keyboards, programming
Elliot Finn: Vocals
Harper Finn: Backing Vocals on Malecón
Yaron Stavi: Bass, double bass
Israeli bass player who played with Berlin Philharmonic, Gilad Atzmon Orient Express, Robert Wyatt, David Gilmour, and all Phil’s albums for the last 10 years
Steve DiStanislao: Drums
Played with David Gilmour, Crosby Stills Nash, Don Felder, Joe Walsh, Kenny Loggins
Javier Weyler: Drums
Stereophonics, Phil Manzanera
Guy Pratt: Bass
Pink Floyd, David Gilmour, Roxy Music, Bryan Ferry, Nick Mason’s Saucerful of Secrets, Madonna, Rockonteurs podcast
Anna Phoebe: Violin
Trans-Siberian Orchestra, Oi Va Voi, Ian Anderson, Jon Lord, Roxy Music
Matteo Saggese: Piano
Zucchero, Phil Manzanera, Apollo 440
Frank Portaoundo: Bass
World renowned Cuban bass player from Santiago de Cuba
Mike Boddy: drum programming, engineering, mixing
Worked with Bryan Ferry, David Gilmour, Andy Mackay, Mumford & Sons, Billy Bragg, The Fall
Yazz Ahmed: Flugel Horn and treatments
Toshiko Akiyoshi, Rufus Reid, John Zorn, Ash Walker, the London Jazz Orchestra, Radiohead, Lee Perry, ABC, Joan as Police Woman.
João Mello: Sax
David Gilmour, Razorlight, Phil Manzanera
Corinna Hentchel: violin, viola
Gilad Atzmon &The Orient House Ensemble, recorded for Beatie Wolfe and plays in various orchestras including the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra.
Ann Masina: Vocals
Africa Sings Choral Society, Nico Malan Opera House (also known as Cape Town Opera House), double Grammy Award Winners Soweto Gospel Choir (SGC). She performed at the 46664 Concert at Hyde Park in London with the SGC as ambassadors for the late former South African President, Nelson Mandela.
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Follow TIM FINN
AND PHIL MANZANERA
Website
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