Out Of Silence

"For a long time, I've wanted to do a record in one crack and get it out in a week. So that's what we're doing. Then I thought, 'Well if we're going to do that, let's not make it a little acoustic thing that's easy to record in one session. Let's make it the most sophisticated record I've ever made."

All things considered - the live worldwide stream, the tight deadline - you would expect Neil Finn to be the most anxious person present at the recording of his fourth solo album OUT OF SILENCE. However, if you take a minute to survey the throng surrounding him in his Auckland studio, a different picture emerges. Aware that more anything in excess of three takes of any one song is likely to set the schedule back, the orchestra's bonhomie is laced by a mixture of black coffee, adrenalin and intense focus. When the time comes to record their parts, the players in the house band occasionally look up to take their cues from the man whose songs they're here to enhance. For the album's arranger Victoria Kelly, this is the moment when months of meticulous scoring burst into life. But on the sleeve of the resulting record, it's only Neil Finn's name you'll see. That's a weight only he bears. And yet, seated at the upright piano on which many of these songs came to life, he is, by some distance, the most relaxed person in the room.