FINN - the ayes will have it

In these times, where the media-industry is on all hands and feet to desperately try to convince us that the new Coldplay album is actually the best album ever recorded[1], it is nevertheless almost impossible to hide from the spell of the magic of melancholic music. Fortunately the alternatives to said dull mega popstar radio formatted songs are easily found and relished. Because, and that is the good message after all, there is substantial soft and melancholic music out there, that wallows in a true and modern definition of pop, actually hugging the definition of pop as a friendly ghost brightening up our daily lives by radiating beauty and harmony into our grey walls. This kind of popmusic is not striving for grandeza, the big screen and stage or the megalomaniac extra-realism of the live of a popstar (don’t you dare count Ziggy Stardust in my face), but produces small vignettes of outright beauty, that instead of impressing all senses with one big blast, will make your mind work and marvel at the intensity that comes from a single lighted spark.

Patrick Zimmer aka Finn has produced a record of eleven songs so sparse, warm, intimate and instantly embracing the listener that adjectives expressing all kinds of beautiful, gentle and human feelings are flowing freely from my keyboard. Mixing electronic devices and analogue instruments comes as easily and natural with him as the strings in an old Diana Ross song or guitar feedback on a My Bloody Valentine record. Drums may come from a computer or a real set, but the differences start to blur and dissolve between laid back rhythms and slowly flowing vocals that sound as if they are carried on the strings, the guitar or the horn section in the background. Definitely belonging into the living room music category it is hard to pick out a single track here, because of the concise flow of the record or rather the way time starts to expand and shift while the songs yearn away and you find it hard to concentrate within the trance you have fallen into. Two years ago I had a similar experience with Crescent (lying in the grass by myself in an enormous public swimming place), but Finn is in comparison low on the experimental factor, therefore higher letting waves of sound wash all over you.

To expose yourself so openly and to give so much introspection away as Patrick Zimmerman does only works with two prerequisites: either the artist is a manic self-exposeur, who wants to lay bare his deepest thoughts and scars to a wide public, gaining whatever kind of gratification from that – like Connor Oberst for instance. Usually, artists of this kind are too young to know any better or haven’t gown up in a family where a thick hide is the most important part of daily survival. Or, the other possibility, the artist defines a role for himself that he plays, so that the intimacy produced is only a façade after all, but a work of art nevertheless. Thinking about it, either way is not important for the outcome, if the results sound convincingly true enough. I’d suppose Finn should be put into the first category nevertheless (even though some might even argue that the two are inseperable and actually one and the same thing.)

[1] The media-industry will try to convince us to buy the best whatever of all times each and every month. A ploy that is so easily visible – it won’t take you longer than two or three months to realize – that it starts to kill itself. In my opinion this fucked up hyper marketing, focussed on the big hype instead of substance is the main reason for the downfall of the media-industries profits and not mp3-sharing or piracy. I have decided for myself to intentionally ignore anything that is being hyped (with the exception of me being interested before I notice the hype, because it is impossible to work yourself backwards. Believe me, I have tried.) and I don’t feel any worse for it.

FINN The ayes will have it CD, Sunday service

Hours and hours of beautiful summer dreaming are up ahead. “The ayes will have it” is among the best prerequisite for that. If you think of idling away some time by yourself with just headphones and a sunbench to lie on, try this one. Forty years or so after “Lucy in the sky with diamonds” she is still up there somewhere slowly flying and dreaming. Stare up until you lose all focus and you might just see her. Then spend a nice hour with her until the last sounds of this record glitter away in a flurry of angelic space-sounds.
In these times, where the media-industry is on all hands and feet to desperately try to convince us that the new Coldplay album is actually the best album ever recorded[1], it is nevertheless almost impossible to hide from the spell of the magic of melancholic music. Fortunately the alternatives to said dull mega popstar radio formatted songs are easily found and relished. Because, and that is the good message after all, there is substantial soft and melancholic music out there, that wallows in a true and modern definition of pop, actually hugging the definition of pop as a friendly ghost brightening up our daily lives by radiating beauty and harmony into our grey walls. This kind of popmusic is not striving for grandeza, the big screen and stage or the megalomaniac extra-realism of the live of a popstar (don’t you dare count Ziggy Stardust in my face), but produces small vignettes of outright beauty, that instead of impressing all senses with one big blast, will make your mind work and marvel at the intensity that comes from a single lighted spark. Patrick Zimmer aka Finn has produced a record of eleven songs so sparse, warm, intimate and instantly embracing the listener that adjectives expressing all kinds of beautiful, gentle and human feelings are flowing freely from my keyboard. Mixing electronic devices and analogue instruments comes as easily and natural with him as the strings in an old Diana Ross song or guitar feedback on a My Bloody Valentine record. Drums may come from a computer or a real set, but the differences start to blur and dissolve between laid back rhythms and slowly flowing vocals that sound as if they are carried on the strings, the guitar or the horn section in the background. Definitely belonging into the living room music category it is hard to pick out a single track here, because of the concise flow of the record or rather the way time starts to expand and shift while the songs yearn away and you find it hard to concentrate within the trance you have fallen into. Two years ago I had a similar experience with Crescent (lying in the grass by myself in an enormous public swimming place), but Finn is in comparison low on the experimental factor, therefore higher letting waves of sound wash all over you. To expose yourself so openly and to give so much introspection away as Patrick Zimmerman does only works with two prerequisites: either the artist is a manic self-exposeur, who wants to lay bare his deepest thoughts and scars to a wide public, gaining whatever kind of gratification from that – like Connor Oberst for instance. Usually, artists of this kind are too young to know any better or haven’t gown up in a family where a thick hide is the most important part of daily survival. Or, the other possibility, the artist defines a role for himself that he plays, so that the intimacy produced is only a façade after all, but a work of art nevertheless. Thinking about it, either way is not important for the outcome, if the results sound convincingly true enough. I’d suppose Finn should be put into the first category nevertheless (even though some might even argue that the two are inseperable and actually one and the same thing.) [1] The media-industry will try to convince us to buy the best whatever of all times each and every month. A ploy that is so easily visible – it won’t take you longer than two or three months to realize – that it starts to kill itself. In my opinion this fucked up hyper marketing, focussed on the big hype instead of substance is the main reason for the downfall of the media-industries profits and not mp3-sharing or piracy. I have decided for myself to intentionally ignore anything that is being hyped (with the exception of me being interested before I notice the hype, because it is impossible to work yourself backwards. Believe me, I have tried.) and I don’t feel any worse for it.

CD, Sunday service